


The Bad Wolf

by Hudine



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, this is an old fic from fanfiction.net
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:02:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 43,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7804609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hudine/pseuds/Hudine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a long journey that takes Rose back to The Doctor when she uses the dimension cannon, one that changes things for Rose forever. Join Rose and her friends as she travels through Gallifrey, an alt universe, and eventually to her Doctor fighting The Silence from behind the scenes. Eleven and Rose reunited in CH 14</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: thanks Godric'sGrl01 for fixing my spelling :) And special thanks to Cordelia Rose for fixing up my grammar, making the story flow so much better.
> 
> This story was first wrote way back in April 2013 and I kind of abandoned it after getting stuck on action sequences in June 2013, I did intend to finish this and still might someday. I never really planed what to do after the Doctor and Rose finally met was supposed to end it then. Action isn't my strong suite I'm better at comedy and Drama.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own or have anything to do with the production of Doctor Who.

Prologue

Rose Tyler got up that morning, thinking this has to be the day. The stars are going out and things have got eerily quiet from other worlds in this universe. She has been dimension hopping for over two months now, not always landing on Earth, but the same thing is happening there nonetheless. Rose needs to find The Doctor in her home universe but without a point of reference it is easier said than done. She still wakes up every morning after getting back home in disappointment, thinking that this time will be different, this next jump will take her to her Doctor.

Rose is no longer sure how old she is because sometimes she is stuck for months at a time in whatever dimension she's been in, although somehow she always seems to manage to get home shortly after leaving. No one else that uses the Dimension Cannon can do that, and she thinks it strange but she and the rest of Torchwood don't put much effort into finding out about it because time is running out.

Walking into the Canary Wharf Torchwood building she checks in as she always does and makes her way up to the room the Dimension Cannon is housed in. The same damnable room in which Rose got stuck in this universe, where in her original universe that Torchwood housed the lever room for the ghost shifts. Every time she had to look at that stupid white wall it just made her more determined to get to The Doctor.

We've managed to increase the power to the Dimension Cannon. We think this will help get you farther through the void. Hopefully to the right universe this time," one of the top scientists named Malcolm told Rose confidently.

"You've said that before; we're not going to cause a blackout across the whole south of England this time?" Rose teased. She liked Malcolm; he's been a good friend to her over the years she's spent in Pete's world. He reminds her of the doctor in a mad scientist kind of way.

"No, of course not," he scoffed. "Think bigger Rose, I'm aiming for all of England this time, and possibly some of Scotland and most of Wales. Still trying to figure out how to take out Northern Ireland with it though. It's on a completely different grid that's unconnected because the Irish Sea is in the way, but we all need goals to work on."

Rose laughed at the panicked look on Mickey's face. "Relax, he's only joking."

"Easy for you to say, you didn't have to explain it to Pete."

"No, but I did have to explain to Mum why she missed Eastenders."

"Good point. You probably got it worse than me. Jackie's always been a right terror if someone interrupts her soaps," Mickey conceded.

Rose picked up her controller for the Dimension Cannon and positioned herself ready for the jump, "Well, better wish me luck then."

"Yeah, good luck Rose, and if they have books six and seven of Harry Potter where you end up, pick us up a copy will you?" Mickey wished her luck with something trivial at the end, since anytime he mentioned what she's doing this for, Rose got in worse trouble than normal. It had become a sort of ritual now.

"Will do. And the rest of them while I'm at it. Can read them to Tony." There were three things she missed most that are not in this universe other than The Doctor: Harry Potter, Discworld and the rubbish chips***. There were some Terry Pratchett books here but that series just didn't take off in this universe. She actually tried looking J.K. Rowling up here, just to find she'd been lost to cyber conversion. And,as for the chips, it was just something with the potatoes and there was little she could do about it. At least she did manage to convince a startled Stephanie Meyer to get that file off of her computer and got Twilight published. It's funny, she'd never so much as picked up a book outside school before she met The Doctor, but the TARDIS talked her into reading things she'd like and now Rose reads all the time.

Trying her best to visualise the TARDIS in her head, Rose pressed the button on her controller and she went shooting forward into a portal that appeared in front of her, made of blue sparks, artron energy, a distant part of her brain provided. It was getting freaky how she just knew things sometimes. It's something that has been happening more and more frequently, and something she needed to talk to the Doctor about because she has a sneaking suspicion she isn't even human anymore. If she was honest with herself she'd been changing ever since she looked into the TARDIS. After all, said TARDIS never actually spoke to her before she looked into its heart. She wanted to ask The Doctor about it but the TARDIS advised her not to mention they were speaking so she didn't.

Rose landed rather roughly on the other side, but she was immediately captivated by the sight in front of her, there was what appeared to be a schism in the fabric of reality right in front of her and she could see all of time and space, everything that ever was, is and will be, as well as memories of her time as Bad Wolf. She was inspired; she could feel her mind expanding as she watched and felt her body changing on a cellular level. Her mind filled with all the knowledge the TARDIS had gifted her with which had lain dormant until now. She now had knowledge of trans-temporal physics, temporal engineering, every language in existence, twelve-dimensional mathematics, and a whole host of things one would need to spend hundreds of years at the Time Lord Academy to know.

Rose felt a small hand take hers and she was suddenly aware of her surroundings again. A small boy of around eight years looked up at her as shocked Time Lords began to come to their senses and notice the intruder who had mysteriously appeared in front of them. The little boy tugged at her hand and simply said, "Run."


	2. Chapter 1

Well, she mused as she took off down the red grassy slope into the cover of the silver leafed trees, and through the woods hand in hand with the little boy, she at least found The Doctor, she was just rather early. Not that this was her Doctor or ever would be, she was in the wrong causal nexus; this was an alternate version.

"They call me Theta, what's your name?"

"Rose."

"Nice to meet you, Rose. How did you get here?"

Rose started to think of everything that brought her to this point, from the word 'run' to the stars going out and the Dimension Cannon. Before she could say anything though Theta stopped in his tracks and blinked.

"You really love that alternate version of me."

Rose stopped and blushed. "Don't you know it's bad manners to read people's thoughts without permission?"

Theta had the good sense to look embarrassed. "Sorry I didn't mean to, it's just your thoughts are so loud. You're not used to being telepathic is all. That's okay though because I'm taking you to see someone who can help, he helped me when I was just a Time Tot because I've got extra powerful telepathy myself. His name is K'anpo he lives as a hermit up here in a cave in these mountains. The council will want to see you and that's not a good thing, they will want to lock you up and study you because you're something new, but no one will think to look with K'anpo. All the other Time Lords thinks he's crazy and stay away from him, he also mistrusts the government so he won't turn you over."

"Right so we're off to see the wizard then," she remarked sarcastically.

"He's a monk not a wizard."

Rose smiled; the Doctor was an adorable little boy. So innocent and naive, like most eight-year-old boys she supposed. Her newfound senses told her this was him; he had the same yet different telepathic signature, only difference being something that marked him as being from this universe. Yet here he was all of eight years of age and trying to save someone because of his beliefs that what the Time Lords might do to her is wrong.

"It's from a story back on Earth called 'The Wizard of Oz' it's about a girl who suddenly finds herself in another world and has to go see the Wizard to go home and meets friends along the way."

"I like stories, can you tell it to me? I've never heard any Human stories before."

One look at those big bright eyes and adorable pout and Rose was a goner. She spent the next week walking through the Forest of Solitude on the Mountain of Solitude, which stood beside its twin, the Mountain of Solace while she told Theta every story from Earth she could recall reading. She tried to keep them age appropriate, but he was a Time Lord. Theta, in return, taught her to live off the land around them. He and his best friend Koschei spent a lot of time in the woods apparently.

Eventually they arrived at K'anpo's cave. It was furnished simply yet with technological benefits as well. Rose felt a strange yet familiar mind touch hers, 'sister', it said to her in greeting. She looked around and eventually settled on an unassuming wardrobe then realised why it was familiar, it was a TARDIS who touched her mind, not The Doctors' who had become her good friend, but a TARDIS none-the-less.

"K'anpo! Hey K'anpo I've got someone here to see you!"

An older man with greying hair and bushy beard dressed in Monk's robes walked out of the wardrobe. "Theta! You little scamp; everyone is looking for you. The Custodians have already been here looking for you. Where have you been? It shouldn't have taken this long to get here."

"I'm sorry; I took the long way and kept to the shadows so they wouldn't find us."

"So this must be the mystery woman that showed up from nowhere. Hmm I see why you brought her here. Your thoughts are rather loud, Rose, dear, and who is this Obi-Wan Kenobi you think I look like."

Rose blushed but Theta got excited in the way little boys do and said, "Oh I know this story, Rose told me all about it. Apparently, they have these things on Earth called films, moving pictures in just 2D can you imagine? I'm going to go to Earth just to see it someday. Anyway this one starts, A Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

K'anpo laughed getting the gist of the story from Rose's mind. Mental communications were so much faster than talking, for example, Rose told K'anpo the whole six movies inadvertently in the time it took the boy to say, 'a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away'. "Could be worse, could be that Darth Vader character, although I like how he turned to good in the end. Remember that, even the worst people can be saved."

"Aww I wanted to tell the story."

"Sorry about him, he loves to talk. You really should go to the Academy now Theta, your mother is worried about you."

Rose smiled, "The alternate version of a much older Theta I know has quite a gob on him as well."

The boy pouted and said, "I don't want to be a politician like my family wants, I want to explore."

"And someday you will but you need to go learn in the meantime," the monk replied.

"Fine, I'll go turn myself in, but you need to promise you won't turn Rose in."

"Cross my hearts, I won't turn her in; she needs a lot of help with her mental shielding. Now go on."

Theta went up to Rose and hugged her. "Good luck Rose, I hope you find your Doctor soon." Reluctant the youngster let go, programmed something into the transmat and was gone.

"Will he be okay?"

"Children are rare and cherished here, he will get a scolding, interrogated as to your whereabouts no doubt, but they won't harm him. Some of our harshest punishments are given to those how harm children."

"Can they trace that transmat?"

"Ordinarily yes, but the little scamp has scrambled it so it can't be traced and looks accidental. I'm going to need to spend the next few weeks fixing it no doubt. He's a smart boy, pretends to be stupid but don't let that fool you, he notices everything."

"Yes I've noticed that myself," Rose admitted ruefully.

"But first we need to work on your mental shielding, not only is your current state somewhat embarrassing for you, it's considered rude to project all the time."


	3. Chapter 2

Rose spent all afternoon learning to meditate with K'anpo, to help clear her mind, and organise her thoughts in preparation to learn how to shield her mind. She got the concept, but clearing your mind is much easier said than done, she keeps thinking about not thinking of anything, and projecting it much to K'anpo's amusement.

Even his TARDIS was laughing at her. "If you think it's so bloody funny you try it," Rose yelled at his TARDIS, who was doing a very good impression of an inanimate wardrobe who never had a single thought in its life.

_'Oh little sister, it's not you, I find this whole concept of meditation funny.'_

K'anpo was looking at Rose as if she had gone mad.

"What! Your TARDIS was laughing at me."

"TARDIS although semi-sentient, cannot communicate with others because of how they are constructed."

"I can hear her just fine; I've been able to talk with The Doctor's TARDIS as well."

_'And tell him to watch who he calls semi-sentient.'_

"She also resents being called semi-sentient, just because they don't naturally perceive time in a linear fashion, doesn't mean they aren't as sentient as you and me. Although a certain type 40 could have told me, it's not normal to be able to talk to her. No wonder she didn't want me telling the Doctor I can communicate with her."

"What are you? You're not human, or Time Lord."

"I'm the Bad Wolf," Rose replied simply. She honestly didn't know herself.

_'A TARDIS consciousness inside a human, with Time Lord TNA structure. You are a child of the TARDIS, and although you are limited in this form, you are less so than so-called Time Lords. You are the Bad Wolf. You created yourself to protect the Doctor, but there are things you need to do here first.'_

Rose didn't know what to make of what she was just told; she certainly didn't want to advertise it to the Time Lords. Giving K'anpo a look that clearly said to drop it, she sighed, and sat back down to meditate.

A week later, and after one brief interval where she had to hide in the TARDIS while the guard came looking for her, later. Theta hadn't told them anything, but they decided to check everywhere the boy was known to hang around. How they didn't notice the TARDIS she has no idea.

Rose had mastered the basics of meditation, and organising her thoughts. She also named K'anpo's TARDIS Matilda. She didn't really know why it just seemed as good a name as any when Matilda explained that, like a Time Lord, a TARDIS doesn't give out her soul name to just anyone, and she doesn't have any other name. TARDIS don't need them, they just know who they are speaking to when talking to each other, so she asked Rose to give her one.

"Alright you are ready to learn mental shielding now. To start you need to visualise the most impenetrable object you can imagine. The stronger the better but the less weak points the stronger it will be, for example you could imagine a brick wall but the mortar that holds the bricks is a weak point, not as hard to break through. Okay so let's start, and nod when you're ready, then I'll try and get through. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work the first time, it takes a lot of practice to mount a good defence."

With what she thinks is some gentle prodding from Matilda, Rose remembers the first time she entered The Doctor's TARDIS, and the Doctor had said not to worry the assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through those doors. She smiled, and pictured the big blue police box she knew, and loved then put her thoughts on the inside of the TARDIS, but something else happened she felt his TARDIS presence in her mind.

 _'Sexy?'_ Rose reached out and asked using the Doctor's nickname for her.

_'My wolf! It was good to hear from you!'_

Rose sent some mental laughter her way, _'You mean it is good, tenses again. Matilda doesn't have a problem with them.'_

_'Well Matilda is just a show off.'_

_'Don't worry Sexy I'll always love you best, but how am I talking to you? You're in another universe.'_

_'I am the same soul no matter what universe my box is in. I have a box in that universe at the moment in the museum; my Thief needs to steal me yet. Just don't tell the Time Lords about our multi-universal properties it's a secret. You imagined your mind inside of me, and that's one way for us to talk because of our connection. Don't worry; I'll never let that old meddler of a monk get in your mind dear. Here's how you do it.'_

The old girl showed Rose a concept she couldn't put into words of how to have a multi-layered shield, with her deepest secrets in the very core where it was impenetrable, yet she can see everything outside her shield just fine like it was glass. She could even choose who to let in, and how deep.

Rose gave a smirk and nodded to K'anpo. The Monk tried to get past her shield, but just couldn't get past the big blue box no matter how hard he tried; even using touch which enhanced Time Lord telepathy he couldn't break the outer layer of her shield.

"How can I not get past that? It's just a wooden box from Earth 1960s."

Smiling wide with her tongue in teeth grin Rose laughed. "It's not really a police box, it's a TARDIS."

"Genius, no one will get into that. Never thought of it before. Now we need to practice how fast you can take it down, and put it up again."

She ended up spending 50 years with the old Monk, she didn't know how exactly, but she knew she had a very long time to spend in this universe, and the TARDIS part of her will always bring her back to when she left Pete's World. She also wasn't ageing. K'anpo taught her everything he knew about mental shields, attack, and also using psychic energy, but mostly they debated philosophy. She read a lot of his books on the subject, and they debated them. It wasn't something she would have enjoyed much before when she was human, but now she had learned patience for the subject, and started to enjoy it. It was after a long discussion on the subject of the power of a name, and how people can be controlled using it that she started to be known as The Bad Wolf or Wolf for short.

K'anpo, and Matilda, weren't her only company during that time; she learned how to tap into the TARDIS gossip network, so she knew everything that is going on. Wolf also talked to her favourite old girl; she'd give her updates on her Doctor some times, as well as past exploits. Wolf was left in hysterical giggles at the story of how she got stuck as a police box; she'd done it deliberately because the Doctor was showing off. He's still not realised there is nothing wrong with the chameleon circuit, although he's tried lots of times to fix it. Besides she likes being a police box.

Theta came to visit often on his days off from the Academy; he still loved to hear stories, even when he grew up physically, she's not sure he will ever grow up mentally. He also brought his best mate Koschei, who everyone said had gone a little mad from looking into the Untempered Schism.

There were trips in Matilda all over the universe, with more observing and less run for your life than Rose would have liked, but she learned all about fixed points and tipping points, and all the rest about the laws of time along the way.

She also went to the small village about a half-day's walk away from the cave. There were two distinct classes in Gallifreyan society; the Time Lords who almost all came from _'the houses'_ they were the ruling class, then there was the ordinary people just known as Gallifreyans. Very few of them became Time Lords; only if they find a child among them young enough with lots of potential hovering around them did they get to attend the Academy, and got mostly only the most menial positions amongst them. While the Time Lords ruled the world the Gallifreyans were treated as peasants, and did all the necessary tasks like farming, building, making clothes, and everything else you could think of. They were nice people, very open, and friendly, and more than willing to hide her when they heard the Time Lords were after her because they didn't like the Time Lords due to how they treat them.

It was when Theta was arranged to marry someone he didn't like, and he begged Rose to run away with him that Rose decided to move on leaving Theta behind breaking her heart in the process. He may not be her Doctor but she did genuinely love this one, just not the way he wanted her to. Also she could see it was a fixed point there was nothing she could do about it which was what she told Theta.

So as the Bad Wolf, she wandered around all over Gallifrey seeing wonderful things, getting to know the people. She helped take in the harvest, learned to ride antigravity motorcycles, helped build a children's hospital from the ground up, sewed clothes in what could only be described as a sweat shop, and everywhere she went she left things better than before by helping where she could. Due to the TARDIS gossip network she was always able to stay one step ahead of the Time Lord's very persistent guards. She became something of a legend among the ordinary people.

It wasn't until Theta ran away from Gallifrey with his granddaughter Susan, and became the Doctor 150 years later that The Bad Wolf became distracted enough for the Time Lords to finally catch up with her.


	4. Chapter 3

The Wolf awoke suddenly, last thing she knew she was exploring the Continent of Wild Endeavour, and then Time Lords surrounded her. She had put up a fight of course, but they shot her with some sort of stunning device that knocked her out cold. Now she appeared to be secured with metal straps, half naked, to a metal examination table, and three Time Lords are bursting into golden light regenerating around her. Also she's got a two and a half inch cut on her sternum.

Another six Time Lords burst through the door to the room suddenly, and helped the regenerating Time Lords, out of the room once they had stopped glowing. An older, sour faced man soon followed them.

"How did you do that!" It was a statement not a question.

"Do what?"

"Don't give me that! Those where three of our best biologists, and suddenly they spontaneously regenerate, as soon as they start work on you."

"Look I really don't know what you are talking about. I was unconscious. Last thing I knew I was in a Grockelian field hiding in the tall stalks, and I was surrounded. I've not done anything wrong."

"Oh yea? Two hundred years ago, you somehow illegally teleported into a restricted zone, using some sort of crude dimension hopping device. You interrupted a sacred ceremony no outsider is allowed to see, and ran away. You disappeared off the radar for fifty years, and then suddenly we start hearing of a mysterious woman, matching your description, all over Gallifrey, making a menace of themself practically everywhere you go."

"Those so called biologists, where obviously about to dissect me while I was still alive. It must have triggered my defensive reflexes; I have really strong mental abilities. It wasn't deliberate. And, everywhere I went; I was trying to help is all."

"Scans and tissue samples only. You wouldn't be permanently harmed. And help? You blew up an entire complex for housing farming equipment, drove an antigravity motorbike though a twelfth story window of an office building, and set fire to a clothing manufacturing facility. Need I go on?"

"I wasn't to know that, I was unconscious. The so called farming equipment was actually drugs that were being sent all over Gallifrey, they ruin people's lives. They wouldn't let me in the front door of that office, when I went to confront a man about kidnapping children. The clothing manufacturing facility was a sweatshop. Do you need me to go on?"

"And the incident with the cave system in the mountains?"

"Illegal distillery."

"You built a hospital in the Valley of Redemption."

"I like children, the low class have problems getting medical treatment, kids die. A rather nice Time Lord wanted to help the people where he came from, I just persuaded the landowners to agree is all. In addition, I pitched in with the building because they were short on workers. That's hardly being a menace."

"I was under the impression; you blackmailed the so called owners."

"Blackmail is such a harsh word. I prefer persuaded. Can I get up now?"

"Fine," the man huffed, turned, and left.

Rose sat in a white interrogation room, bored. The room was all white, and only furnished with a table and two chairs. Her time senses told her she'd been here for four hours, fifty-three minutes. She concentrated, and reached out to the TARDIS consciousness that ran this place. All high security Time Lord Buildings had them, and the TARDISes hated it, they felt that, Rassilon broke his bargain with them by suppressing the knowledge of what they are. Only the people that grew TARDIS coral knew fully what they are.

 _'Sister, what's going on?'_ Rose asked.

_'The CIA is arguing about what to do with you. They're afraid after you damaged the others.'_

_'Was afraid of that. It's not like I did it on purpose.'_

_'Bad Wolf acted in self-defence. Not your fault. Do you want to leave? I can open the doors for you.'_

_'Not yet. I've been running long enough, time to talk to these people. If that doesn't work, might need your help.'_

_'Eldest, has told us all to help you when possible. I will help you later.'_

She often wondered whom, _'Eldest'_ , was, the Wolf often heard the TARDISes talk about and revere her. She was a leader of some sort among them. Sexy was the only one who didn't say anything about her, and changed the subject anytime Rose asked.

Rose Tyler, also known as the Wolf, or if she was angry, the Bad Wolf, sighed. She looked at the clothes they provided. A simple bright blue linen jumpsuit of the kind they give to prisoners in America, only it is blue instead of orange. Orange would camouflage too much in the red grass of Gallifrey. Knowing they were watching her, the Wolf rolled up the sleeves of her suit and put her feet up on the table, leaning back in the chair with her hands resting on her head, the picture of nonchalance. If she were any good at whistling, she would have tried it as well.

After another hour two people came in the room. One was young looking, but had ancient blue eyes with dirty blond hair peeking out of the stupid looking skullcap Time Lords wore; he also had the stupid shoulder pads on that reached up behind the head in a shell like pattern, and green robes. The other was a big guy, well-muscled, and looked like he could knock down a brick wall bare handed. Obviously, he was there to try to intimidate her. It really didn't work because she knew now, she can send out and attack that could regenerate him into a skinny woman.

The first one sat opposite her, and the muscle just loomed in the background. "I am Rossadelaser, of the Celestial Intervention Agency."

"Sorry about that, I mean that name is quite a mouthful. Can I just call you, Ross?"

"No."

"Okay, Ross, there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding here, you see I'm innocent."

"You, are a lot of things, but innocent isn't one of them. Now who are, you, and where did, you, come from? And don't call me Ross."

"I am the Bad Wolf, or just Wolf. I come from another universe."

"That isn't your real name. Taking a name that is a title is an ancient Gallifreyan tradition, only taken by renegades now."

"Yes, well, can't spend two hundred years on a planet, and not pick up some of its customs. After all, discarding your name to take a new one is even older than Time Lords, and even Rassilon himself."

Ross decided to drop the issue, knowing a lost cause. After all it didn't matter to the CIA what she called herself. "Where did you come from, and why are you here?"

"I'm from Earth, 2012, in an alternate timeline. I'm not even in the right causal nexus. In that nexus, the Time Lords are no more, there was a war, the last Great Time War, everyone lost. There is only one Time Lord left there, the Doctor. I was trying to reach him. I'm also too far back in the time stream, the Doctor here has only just ran away with his granddaughter Susan. He's well into his nine hundreds when I'm looking for that version of him. Something is wrong, the stars are going out, the universe has gone eerily quiet, and it's been happening in every parallel world I've gone to; even the void is dead. In another seven hundred years, it will happen here as well. We need help, we need, my Doctor."

"That sounds ridiculous. You are not human, not anymore at least, and Earth shouldn't have that sort of technology."

"Read my mind, you, can see for yourself."

The Time Lord who sat opposite her gave her a long assessing look, weighing up the risks of doing so. After all, she did make three Time Lords spontaneously regenerate. Probably the only reason they've not probed her mind already. "You, will willingly submit to a mind read?"

"As long as you don't get too nosey, yeah. After all a girl has to keep her secrets." The Wolf gestured to the other man looming over them. "You always have, Tiny, the walking muscle, over there for backup if I try anything."

Tiny smirked at the nickname when he heard it. "Lord Rossadelaser, sir, if she is willing to cooperate we should take the chance, what she is telling us concerns us all if it's true. Besides I like her, she's got spunk, she'll not do anything."

Sighing, the other man nodded, then moved around to Rose's side of the table and put his hands on her temple. The Wolf guarded her secrets well, but also showed him much: the Doctor, their separation, the stars disappearing rapidly one by one, the Dimension Cannon, her trips through parallel after parallel, only to find the same thing happening in each one; her arrival in Gallifrey, the Untempered Schism, and the vision of what the CIA might do that made her run away. She didn't show him where she ran to, or hid the Dimension Cannon, but she did show him some of what she had been up to, how badly things are for the lower classes, and how she just helped when possible.

"We need to report to the High Council immediately."

"So it's true? A universal collapse event?"

"Worse, I'd say multiversal."

So, the Time Lords' left in rather a hurry, and left Rose alone again. Although, now she is relieved because hopefully there was a chance that help might be coming.


	5. Chapter 4

Of course things would have been way too easy if the CIA had just let her go and the Time Lords help her. No they decided she was too dangerous and unknown potential to just let loose in the multiverse so they were going to keep her a prisoner for the rest of her life. Not that they weren't addressing the problem that she told them about, right now they have all their seers and visionaries working on the problem, they want to know every possible outcome before they do anything.

So far Rose had broken out of every containment cell she had been put into thanks to her ability to talk to the TARDIS in charge of the facility. They have no idea of that useful talent of hers and she has no intention of cluing them into it either. Mostly The Wolf just is so bored there is nothing else to do other than break out and see how long it takes the CIA to catch her this time. Honestly she should be on their payroll with all the training she's been providing for their agents.

So far over the past three hundred years she has made homemade Vortex Manipulators, stolen bored TARDISes, and one time rewrote all their security protocols to make them harder to hack into, it hasn't escaped her notice they still use them either.

When Rose got off world she freed people from oppression, toppled dictators, stopped alien invasions, and even met up with renegade Time Lords, helped the good ones like The Doctor, Corsair, and others, and stopped the bad ones like The Master, and The Rani. All over this universe there is a reason why they ask 'who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?'

_'I want you to try something new my Wolf.'_

Rose woke up from the doze she was having under the tree in the courtyard of Ross' house. He was still in charge of her case despite all the escapes and ensuing escapades that follow. She liked to do stuff like turn up at his house at random on him. She rather liked his wife Naomi, and they, despite everything, became fast friends after she decided The Wolf was relatively harmless, so sometimes she only came to see her.

_'Sexy?'_

_'It was time you learned how to travel through time and space by yourself.'_

_'Is time. Honestly why is it only you that has problems talking in tenses,'_ Rose sighed.

_'Never mind that Rose, do you want to learn or not?'_

She must be serious then, The Doctor's TARDIS only called her that when she was either angry or wanted her to pay attention. _'How? I didn't know I can.'_

_'Of course you can, you are The Bad Wolf, the girl who looked into my heart and created herself, with the soul of a TARDIS no less. Don't do it often, accessing that power for too long at a time could blow your cover and leave you very drained. Wait at least two weeks before accessing that part of yourself again, you need, will need, needed, time for your body to recover.'_

_'So what do I do?'_

_'Remember your lessons in meditation? I need you to meditate, look inside yourself, deep at the very core of your being you can hear singing.'_

Rose through years of practice at meditation didn't take long to find her centre and as she heard the music, The Bad Wolf awoke in her and howled the most breath takingly beautiful music along with the chorus of TARDIS song that always sang along to the sound of the universe.

Rossadelaser came home from another bad day at work just in time to see The Wolf glow an ethereal golden colour, and she radiated with the power of the vortex. As he stood in awe of her he knew the legends of the goddess of time were true, and that his job had just gotten a lot harder. As The Bad Wolf of ancient Time Lord legend disappeared right in front of him he mused that at least if anyone had that power it was her, he'd gotten to know the mysterious woman as well as she'd let anyone know her and if there was one thing he did know it was The Bad Wolf was a very compassionate person and would never use her gift for evil. Heck she'd even managed to guilt him into giving money to the poor, and his wife now ran a shelter for the homeless in a bit of land they owned in a nearby Gallifreyan city.

Rose focused on where she wanted to go very hard but the Blue Police Box she ended up beside was from this universe not her own. She let go of the power and the golden song retreated back inside of her and left her looking perfectly normal. But something changed she was now aware of that power just under the surface, just waiting for her to reach for it. Of course she never would, except maybe to get around in emergency.

_'Good, you've finally become what you are supposed to be. The awareness will fade more into the background as time goes on from its use. Do not use it until it retreats back fully into your centre again. Using that power comes at a cost, it damages your body, and you will heal in time, as long as you only use it in short bursts. I will not insult you with the' with great power comes great responsibility' lecture, I know your heart and know you will already or I would never have taught you how.'_

_'But I'm still in this universe.'_

_'I'm sorry my Wolf, but you still need to do things here before meeting back up with your version of my Thief. Speaking of which here this one comes with the Brigadier, not a word of how you got here.'_

Rose looked around for the first time and noticed she was in The Doctor's UNIT lab, which was thankfully empty. Not for long though because as the TARDIS had indicated here comes The Doctor (in his 3rd form and on exile on Earth) and the Brigadier along with Jo Grant, The Doctor's assistant. "Doctor! Long time no see, and Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart! And Jo Grant! Hello!" The Wolf greeted them all enthusiastically.

The Doctor smiled at her a bit, he never did get over his crush on her, but Rose belonged to a different Doctor. "Wolf, how'd you get here this time?"

"A girl's got to have her secrets Doctor," Rose smirked knowing there is nothing he hates more than a secret he doesn't know about. She stretched her back and neck making a cracking sound, "although time travel without a capsule, always gives me a crick in my neck."

"And is very bad for you, you should just borrow a TARDIS like everyone else."

"Yes and tell me how is it you ended up here? Oh yeah _'borrowing'_ a TARDIS." Rose playfully patted the outside of the TARDIS to prove her point. "Although if she could have stood up in your defence she'd have sworn to the Council that she's the one who stole you."

_'My point exactly, borrowed implies the eventual intention to give the object back, why would I ever give him back? No matter what universe we're in.'_

The TARDIS went unheard by the others, the Brigadier said, "you are as bad as him, if not worse. You talk to that machine as if its alive, you both do."

"She is alive, just none of you are listening hard enough to hear her."

"A TARDIS is grown not made, and I've always suspected they are a lot more sentient than the High Council will have you believe, but no one can actually talk with one anymore than you talk to your plants."

_'I wonder if he will ever realize; he gets shocked by me more often after saying things like that.'_

_'Probably not, he is just a Time Lord after all.'_

Sergeant Benton ran in the room a little breathless, "sir, a space ship has crash landed in the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland, reports are just coming in."

"Get the local army to set up a perimeter, I'm going to organize a helicopter to get us there."

"I always wanted to see Ireland," Jo remarked.

"It's Northern Ireland, and it's the 1970s, make sure you say Northern Ireland to the right people Jo." The Wolf remarked.

"Why?"

"You could end up getting shot by the locals otherwise."

* * *

It took a few hours but eventually UNIT arrived in Northern Ireland, mostly by air since it is hostile to the military in certain areas, and they didn't want to chance the locals not knowing the difference between the British Army, and UNIT which is part of the UN.

One of the local army stood to attention and saluted the Brigadier and his entourage as they arrived at a car park at the foot of one of the mountains beside a trail that led up into the mountains. "Sir. Perimeter secured two miles around the crash site, all trails leading to the site such as this one also secured Sir."

"Very good Captain. Has there been any sign of the inhabitants of the craft?"

"No Sir, it's all been very quiet. We've had to turn away plenty of curious locals though. Small towns such as the ones around here, the gossip seems to travel faster than light speed Sir."

"It always does around these places hopefully we will be able to misdirect most of it. My men will take over from here, although we could still use your help with the perimeter, I'm short on men because of circumstances in Northern Ireland being what they are. Remember though no matter what do not shoot on sight unless they shoot first, am I clear?"

"Crystal Sir. Those are standing orders for dealing with local trouble as well, so my men are well trained in that area."

"Good. Now Doctor... Miss Wolf where are you going?"

Rose stopped and looked around at them, "I'm going up that path to find the aliens to see if they are hostile or not."

"That's too risky," the Brigadier replied.

"You're worried about me? That's sweet, it really is Brigadier. But honestly we could stay here in a Mexican stand off for days, while each party gets more and more scared of the other until it escalates into something; or I can go as a neutral third party and find out what is going on here."

"And if they shoot you on sight?"

"I'll regenerate."

"What you can change like him?"

"Yes and no, the one time it has happened to me I went through something that looked like regeneration but all that changed about me is my eyes which are more golden and I don't need to dye my hair blond anymore." Well on the outside anyway, on the inside her physiology is now Time Lord, two hearts and respiratory bypass included. If the Time Lords weren't already scared of her they'd have tried to _'take more tissue samples'._

"I'll go with her," the Doctor said and the Brigadier nodded happier with the arrangement. "Jo stay with the Brigadier."

So the two of them walked on along the path and didn't say a word until well out of earshot. "So you got out again Rose."

"Sure did _'Theta'._ "

"Don't call me that," the Doctor replied, although he was used to it they always have this argument when alone.

"Don't call me Rose and I'll not call you Theta."

"Five hundred years ago today you arrived here in this universe."

"You were an adorable little boy. And it's only seven years before you get to watch Star Wars on the big screen."

"One of the first things I did was take Susan to see Star Wars but I got the date wrong so we ended up watching one called _'The Lion King'_ instead."

Rose smiled as she remembered Christmas and the Sycorax and her Doctor quoting the Lion King and wondered if something similar had happened to him.

"The one thing that really annoys me about this time period is although women are getting more rights and responsibility I still can't go to parley with the aliens without a big strong man beside me," the Wolf remarks rolling her eyes.

"Did you know ninety percent of species with a matriarchal society don't fight stupid wars?"

"That's because us women tend to think first."

They arrived at the crash sight to find what looks like a giant metal cube in the middle if a small lake. Suddenly Rose senses something and her breath catches, "Doctor," she murmurs in a barely audible whisper.

"What?"

"No, not you, can't you feel it?" Rose starts to wade out into the water followed by the Doctor. As she reached the wreckage she realised they took her sonic last time she was captured and she's not got around to making a new one yet. "Sonic screwdriver, I need your sonic screwdriver!"

The Third Doctor reached into his pocket and handed her his primitive version of a sonic. "Whatever for?"

"So I can do this," she replied running the sonic along where the cube opens. They rushed back as the cube started to open, Rose falling over in the water in the process and pulling him down with her accidentally, but she just laughed.

A strange gangly man with floppy hair in a tweed jacket, bow tie, braces, trousers too short and laced up shoes tumbled out of a seat in the middle, falling face first into the water. That seemed to revive the man because he surfaced gasping for breath a second later. Rose still laughing ran out as fast as she could in the waist high water and helped him up. The man laughed and held onto Rose tight as he noticed her. "Rose Tyler. I never believed in an after life before but I need to ask, am I in heaven?"

Rose was going to answer but suddenly his lips were on hers and she melted into the kiss. He wasn't a bad kisser in this body she decided as his tongue invaded her mouth. They both have a respiratory bypass so this could get interesting, neither will need air for a long time, but they didn't get a chance to test that as the other man shouted out, "am I in heaven? Really that's the best line you could come up with?"

They broke apart and her Doctor looked at the other Doctor in annoyance and took in the surroundings. "It's not a line, it's a valid question considering I should have been written out of reality. Rose, why is my third self here, and why are you both wet?"

Rose laughed; she couldn't help it. For the fist time in just over five hundred years Rose was truly happy. It was her Doctor; even if he had regenerated she can still feel the bond that has existed between them from when he had taken the Time Vortex out of her. She can feel the tingly electricity that shot between them as they touched, and having spent so long on Gallifrey she knew it only happened between their concept of soul mates. "We fell in Doctor after getting you out of in there, and that is and isn't your third incarnation, we're in another universe, not Pete's World but a different causal nexus altogether. Oh and this isn't heaven, actually we're in Northern Ireland."

"Could have been worse, but what are you doing here Rose? I left you with Handy back in Pete's World."

"Handy?"

"Yea my human clone, grew from my hand, my handy spare hand, after that business with the Daleks trying to destroy the omniverse. The two of you were supposed to have a human life together grow old at the same time and all the stuff I couldn't give you."

"Not happened yet. I started jumping universes looking for you when the stars started disappearing. Long story short, I ended up on Gallifrey right in front of the untempered schism just as a certain boy over there was looking in."

"And we both ran away," the other Doctor remarked. "Although she was inspired first, then ran away."

"Been giving the CIA the slip ever since. It's actually been fun proving to the Time Lords they can't lock me up for long."

"But... But... Rose you can't be... Your human..." Her Doctor stuttered in horror realising what he did to Rose, he'd trapped her with a short-lived version of himself.

As he started to scan Rose with his sonic screwdriver a voice spoke up from the shore, "I wouldn't do that if I were you last time we tried scanning her three Time Lords spontaneously regenerated."

"That was an accident, I was unconscious and if they didn't try cutting into my sternum I doubt my defensive reflexes would have triggered. Besides I'd never hurt him deliberately. Even if I do feel like slapping him for doing something he hasn't done to me yet." They turned around to see four time lords standing at the shore of the lake. "Hay Ross, this has to be some sort of record, I only broke out of my cell a day ago. Where's Tiny I see you brought Sourface and The Hoff, never met the kid before, you new?"

"That's Dannill, he's one of Corsairs kids, my main source of Intel during the time war," Eleven informed her. "Until Rassilon discovered he was a double agent. Wasn't pretty what he did to him."

"The Time War?" This universes Doctor asked.

"Way, way in the future. There was a war with the Daleks; it turned into hell. They let Rassilon out of his cage and elected him Lord President, it only got worse after that, he infected everyone with his madness."

Rose took his hand and squeezed it gently. "Won't happen here at least, no Daleks, Davros was stillborn."

Eleven and the wreckage began to flicker in and out of existence for a moment. "Looks like Amy is starting to remember."

"Remember?"

"Never mind that, I have a sentence to finish and not got long to say it."

"Sentence?" She asked not daring to hope.

"I suppose if it's the last chance I get to say it, Rose Tyler, I love you. It does need saying."

"I'm going to have to let you strand me now, you went and fixed it, but after he's lived his life, I'll find you, I promise I'll always find my way back to you my Doctor. I love you."

As soon as she finished her sentence he disappeared along with the wreckage, but he had a hopeful smile on his face. Rose however started sobbing uncontrollably and sank down to her knees, not caring that the lake water was now up to her neck and freezing cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That lake is a real place it's called the Blue Lough and is in the Mourne Mountains. It's not far from where I live and been there a few times when I was younger.


	6. Chapter 5

Rose spent a long time depressed after that meeting. It was going to be a long time before she sees her Doctor again. She just sat in her cell, didn't try and get out again for a number of years. That is until this universe's Doctor got elected Lord President by default. His first order of business was to order her release, which the CIA did reluctantly.

As a free woman she really didn't know what to do with herself, so she travelled with the Doctor for a while becoming herself again. Things were different now between them, he had seen the connection between her and her Doctor and knew he couldn't compete. This Doctor forgot about flirting with her and trying to win her affections, and now just was her friend and surrogate brother.

She really liked the savage Leela and K9, and wished them luck when Leela decided to stay on Gallifrey to marry a Gallifreyan man Andred who was captain of the Chancellery Guard.

Rose was glad when he met Romana and started to show interest. Even if the both of them didn't do much about it, too busy with the mission set out by the White Guardian to find the pieces to the Key to Time. They managed to get the key together but the Doctor proclaimed the universe needs both order and chaos to function properly, so he destroyed and scattered it again. Privately she agreed but her and the TARDIS both thought he was an idiot for pissing off an entire faction of eternals in the process.

The Wolf could have howled in anguish when Romana left to go explore E-Space along with K9 MRKII. Rose leaves not long after his regeneration into his fifth form, rather handsome even if he did dress in a cricketing outfit and wore a stick of celery. It was time for Rose to go back to Gallifrey, the Bad Wolf was calling her back there, and that part of her was never wrong about being needed.

Rose arrived at K'anpo's cave using the latest Vortex Manipulator she had made. Her old friend wasn't home at the moment; in fact he hasn't been for a long time. Last Rose heard he was in a Tibetan Monastery _'observing'_. She knew him and the Doctor had some sort of a falling out but neither man would tell her anything about it.

The Wolf went out of the cave and into a side cave, removed some rocks revealing a dimensionally transcendental chest that she opened. Looking over the items inside she made a mental note that she still had to invent a setting for wood in both the sonic screwdriver she had with her and the spare three stored inside her emergency stash here.

Rose checked the Dimension Cannon and was glad to see it was in order. Tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered her parents, baby brother Tony, Mickey, and all the other friends she had made there; she missed them all but at the same time that strange sense she associates with Bad Wolf tells her she can't go back yet. One difference Rose noticed over the six hundred years she has now been alive, feelings just don't fade with time if it is someone or something she feels strongly about, unlike when she was fully human. Her feelings for her Doctor hadn't faded in the slightest, her views on events she'd experienced with him had changed as she had gotten older, even feelings about events, but not the love she feels for him.

Rose brought it up with this universe's Doctor rather tentatively once, he told Rose that _'one of the greatest blessings and curses of the Time Lords is that you feel most strongly about becomes a core part of who you are and it never changes, protected from the changes brought about by regeneration.'_

In case of feelings for a person if strong enough they will only change as it would naturally with exposure to that person, but without them being around each other it could be a thousand years but you will love them as strongly as if the separation was only a day or a week. It's why he never let's himself fall in love with companions, they for the most part are human so will leave him eventually one way or the other. The only relief is the Time Lord trick of forgetting, tucking memories and feelings safely away to not think about like you've forgotten. Only real problem with it is it all springs back suddenly if something reminds you. The whole conversation gave Rose more insight than she ever thought she'd have on why the Doctor never looked back, he was afraid of remembering.

Rose put the Dimension Cannon back along with her Vortex Manipulator, covered her stash up, then used the transmat in the main cave arriving in the lower class area of the city outside the citadel. A few people greeted her as the Wolf as she wondered through the market, although only the oldest among the ordinary Gallifreyans knew her now, the rest whispered rumour and legend about her as she was pointed out. The Wolf ignored the whispers, and purchased what she needed, stopping to talk occasionally.

Before she knew what was happening the Chancellery guard had surrounded Rose, a haggard looking Andred at their lead along with the two CIA agents she knew most. "Andred, nice to see you again, how's Leela doing?"

"She's adjusting. Stopped killing cleaning robots at least, which is as well it was getting expensive to keep replacing them all the time. Look Wolf I'm sorry about this."

"It's OK you're just following orders I don't hold it against you. So Tiny how's your great great grandson doing?"

"Doing well, he graduated top of his class at the Academy, he's working for The Professor in the Southern Continent now."

"That's great. Ross, how's things?"

"Well Rosie things are doing well at the shelter, in fact Lord President Borusa gave us a huge donation on a PR run before becoming Lord President."

"Don't call me Rosie, only one person can getaway with that, and you're not handsome or flirty enough to be him, or a captain."

"Don't call me Ross and I'll not call you Rosie."

"I'd rather let you get away with calling me Rosie than say Rossadelaser all the time, it really is a mouthful. Have to say though this new regeneration of yours is kinda cheeky. And all you need is glasses and you'd look like Harry Potter."

"Who?"

"It's from a famous children's book series on Earth; never mind that, I take it the reason I'm being arrested is because you lot elected that pompous ass Borusa Lord President. He never did like me much."

"That's an understatement if I ever heard one," Rossadelaser muttered. "Sorry."

"It's okay I know you are a good guy really, not your fault you got your orders. I'll come quietly was getting a little bored without needing to break out of jail all the time. Probably why I went with the Doctor, we always end up in some sort of jail with him around. Although I had this friend we used to travel with back in my universe and he somehow always ended up naked and in a jail cell."

Tiny laughed, "I'd like to meet that friend sounds like quite a character."

"Jack would love to meet you too, trust me." Rose laughed.

Blindfolded and man handled, Rose finally got out of the transport vehicle and Ross removed the hood. She expected a high security prison complex but instead she found she was on the front lawn of a mansion. It looked really nice with neatly cut red grass and silver ivy growing up the side of a wall made of white marble.

"Sorry about the rough treatment, not my normal crew. I'm the only one with the clearance to even know this place exists."

"Where are we? This doesn't look like any normal kind of prison I've been to before."

"Yes well don't let the looks deceive you. This really is quite secure even if it is built for comfort, and you'll have the run of the place like our other _'guest'_ does. The perimeter has several layers of force fields and other things preventing any Teleportation, Vortex Manipulators, or other such devices working, the workings of which is all housed outside of that perimeter. It features all the latest in TARDIS security modules, as well as surveillance equipment. Also if you do somehow get out of all that, we are on a small island off the coast of the Southern Continent. I've no doubt you'll be out of here in no time flat, don't think I haven't noticed your ability to sweet talk a TARDIS, and no I've told no one about it because frankly I actually like you. The problem is can you get out without letting the madman out as well."

They walked toward the house and Rose had to ask, "Madman?"

"You've heard all the legends about Lord Rassilon?"

"Of course."

"Well they lied about his _'final resting place'_ he is very much alive, no one can kill him he perpetually regenerates no matter what they do. He also isn't in stasis or locked in a high tower in the middle of the death zone. He is right here in this prison very few people know about, in the middle of nowhere."

"Is there even a death zone?"

"Yes, it's the only real entertainment I get, they let me control my end from here. It's all projection though, and it's been thousands of years since anyone has tried it," the voice came from a tall middle aged man dressed in elegant red robes, he had bottomless brown eyes that looked unfathomably old, and the madness seemed to radiate off of him.

Rose had been in some sticky situations with Ross and he had always been unflappable, but for the first time in the four hundred some years that she's known him, Rossadelaser was terrified. He tried not to let it show but Rose could see it and feel it, even as a 19 year old shop girl from London, Rose was empathetic the switch in her biology only made her more so. She was also incredibly good at projecting emotions as well so she used it to calm her friend down. Rassilon scowled as the man visibly relaxed in front of him and sent a glare at Rose who just let it wash over her unaffected which seemed to annoy him even more.

"You must be Lord Rassilon I presume."

"Bad Wolf, it's been a long time. Found a way to exist outside of the box I see."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Rose half lied. She knew she was part TARDIS but other than that she had no idea.

"Of course not, if you had all that knowledge it would kill you, burn you up. Although it is amazing what can be done with human DNA to construct such a body for yourself. Use a human to create a Time Lord why would you do something like that?"

"To silence the Silence, the Silence mustn't fall."

"What? What is that supposed to mean?"

Rose shook herself, "I got no idea that just sort of came out from nowhere. Happens to me all the time I just know I need to be somewhere but never quite know why, though I have never just said something before."

Something surprising happened, Rassilon laughed, not a mad or evil laugh, a genuine mirthful belly aching laugh.

"Glad to know someone finds it funny," Rose huffed.

After a few moments he calmed and wiped tears from his eyes. "Oh I've really needed that. The Bad Wolf, The Eldest, you've always enjoyed playing games by withholding information, even from yourself it seems," with that the man turned and returned to the house as Rose and Rossadelaser was left gaping.

"Well as confusing as that was I have to leave now. Good luck with him, I wouldn't leave you here with him but the orders came all the way from the top."

"It's okay. I can take care of myself."

When Ross left Rose didn't quite feel like going inside yet so she sat in the shade of a large Silverleaf tree. She concentrated and found the TARDIS she was looking for, _'OK Blue, give me answers,'_ she demanded.

_'Oh it's Blue, not Sexy, I must be in trouble.'_

_'Don't try and change the subject, Rassilon is laughing at me because apparently I'm withholding information from myself. I want to know what he means and why did he call me the Eldest, that's the name given to the TARDIS leader.'_

_'I suppose it was time you know.'_

_'Tenses, and know what?'_

_'I am The Eldest, and I am also The Wolf. You and me, we are the same, you are a part of me and I am a part of you. But you are also Rose Tyler, your consciousness is separate from me unless you use the Bad power within then we become one... Although like I've said many times before don't use it too much or you will burn. I don't want anything happening to my Wolf.'_

_'OK this is a lot to get my head wrapped around. I am you... But I'm also me...'_

_'Of course, after all we created the paradox that made sure you were born, all the right lineages to make a set of genes capable of becoming more, but most importantly to be you. Your soul is also a set of memories, a story of your life so far and beyond. The moment you separated from me you started to live your own life, do things I can never do, and in those actions you become your own person.'_

_'I don't feel like Rose Tyler shop girl anymore.'_

_'No but that's because you have grown, all people change as they get older, you just more so.'_

_'What if the Doctor doesn't like me anymore.'_

_'He loves you Rose Tyler, I'll not lie there will be some adjusting to do on both your parts, but he loves the girl who sees the people behind all the trouble and not just the adventure, the girl who cares deeply about others. You've never lost that, not in all the years you've been here and all the changes. There you where as you were getting arrested asking your captors about their families, and how a homeless shelter is doing. You may have changed Rose but not that much.'_

_'What about this universes Doctor? He needs a hand to hold too.'_

_'There is someone for him, I love and look after my Thief, all of him. But you were created for your Doctor because he needed someone to ground him after the war. You will always be that one for him, the one who keeps him sane and caring about people, your name keeps him fighting.'_

_'So why am I here and not with him?'_

_'You needed to look into the Untempered Schism and see what the Doctor saw, you know his secret, the one he runs from, the one he locks away and dare not tell anyone. It will help him if he feels he's not keeping something from you. Also you need time to become your own person and know what you can do on your own. Oh and while you're here you need to help Rassilon, make him less mad, care again.'_

_'Great help a sociopath learn to hug and give sweets out to children, no problem,'_ Rose replied sarcastically.

_'There is something you need to know. In the days before we were known as TARDIS, when we had no name, existing outside of time seeing all but not experiencing things in the way you perceive it. We are a curious race; we wanted to know how to experience things in a linear fashion. So we invented the TARDIS coral, but we would need the help of linear beings, so we went to the eternals with the problem and they agreed with us that there needs to be a race to look after time and space. One of our race agreed to become one of them and the eternals helped him become the first Time Lord in every reality where the Gallifreyan race exists._

_'Rassilon was his name and being one of us he could talk to us, so we made the first TARDIS together, and I was the first to be folded into a shell. As you know TARDIS volunteer for the most part to be put in a box, and when a TARDIS shell is destroyed the part of us to be folded in that reality is released. But we were betrayed, they were supposed to be able to talk to us, it was to be a partnership. Rassilon suppressed the knowledge of what we are and what he is. In time the Time Lords began to think of us as mere machines and treated us as such. Every time I have been released from my box, I've gone straight back into another one. I watch Rassilon like a hungry wolf watches prey. I was more than happy to help Time Lock him into the time war, along with every other one of my sisters left in there, they volunteered to help keep the lock locked. But I sense this one can be saved, he won't own up about us but he will be a great leader when there is a war here millennia from now. It's a tipping point and you are going to save the Time Lords from the hell of the Time War in your universe by helping Rassilon now.'_

Rose hung her head and leaned against the tree, it wasn't going to be easy.


	7. Chapter 6

Rose wasn't kidding. At this point, fifty years later, she could describe her progress something like putting two dogs in a bathtub. You put one dog in then the other jumps out, she makes progress, and then he reverts again. Although he has been having more and more sane moments each time before he relapses into insanity. It's his seeming inability to relate to others that was the real problem. Although it wasn't surprising, it might have been kinder to lock him in stasis in the tall tower in the Death Zone, he was so isolated here. He had been left here on his own for hundreds upon thousands of millennia with no regular contact with other people. He only had one visitor, a Time Lady named The Professor who came to see him regularly about once every year, and from what she gathered that was a recent development (well recent by Time Lord standards anyway).

If Rossadelaser hadn't come once a month to visit her as well as have both the TARDISes in charge to talk to (who Rose called Fred and George after the Weasley Twins because they loved mischief, were some of the few male TARDISes and because what Rassilon called them really wasn't very nice), she might have gone a little barmy herself.

She got to see the game of Rassilon in action, and it took all her willpower not to go help her friend when the Doctor got pulled into the middle of it all, in all his five forms so far, along with various companions and his granddaughter Susan. The Wolf wasn't one bit surprised Lord President Borusa was behind it all. Rassilon granted Borusa his immortality by trapping him in the same few seconds played forever on a continuous loop. She was sure he deserved it; the man was a pompous ass who never thought about others unless it was how he could use them for his own gains. Not that she could let Rassilon think for a seconds she approved off what he had done, it might damage his therapy.

"Damn it! Get away you pests!"

Rose was pulled out of her reverie by the man in question's yelling. She broke into a run and arrived in his study to find the great and powerful founder of the Time Lords fending off two cleaning robots that were over zealously trying to clean up the latest calculations he has been scrawling on a whiteboard. He used physical notes rather than computerized where possible she had often noted. Something about hard copies being harder for others to steal from, and his computer terminal was monitored.

_'Fred, George, stop harassing him with the cleaners again.'_

"Damn right you two better! Honestly at least the two of them mostly just ignored me before you got here."

Fred and George projected scenes into their minds of all the things they have done to him over the years he'd been their prisoner to prove him wrong. They'd locked doors, chased him with cleaners, made the food dispenser only serve stuff he hated, played the same song over and over for a week straight, set fire to his study, made the fire suppression system repeatedly fail covering him in foam, replaced every book in the library with children's tales from all over the universe, made sure Barney the talking dinosaur and the talking sheep Lamb chop and his repetitive _'this is the song that doesn't end'_ were the only shows available on the television feed, and one time chased him up the tree in the front lawn with psychotic lawn mowers; just to name a few.

"Well okay maybe they didn't like me much from when they were installed a hundred and eighty years ago, but it's gotten worse."

"Only when you don't show up for your therapy sessions, otherwise I make them leave you alone."

"Therapy is a stupid idea to begin with."

"I've been given a task by The Eldest, to make you more sane, and I'm going to do it even if it kills me."

"You're talking about yourself in the third person now, and you say I need therapy."

Rose let out a frustrated sigh, "how would you like to get out of here for a bit?"

"Ha! Like that would ever happen."

"I'm serious, I think part of your problem is you can't relate to others because you've been cooped up on your own too long. We are going out to meet people and help others. It's going to be a practical lesson for your therapy. Besides the High Council and everyone else are a little distracted after the whole Death Zone incident, the elections since the Doctor ran away again, and everything else."

"Sounds like a great idea."

_'Fred, George, could your two let us out please?'_

_'I don't know if it's a good idea Wolf,'_ Fred stated.

 _'And we've dedicated or lives to keeping him here,'_ George said.

_'Look I don't know how else to help him, I'm not sure there is anything else I can do from in here.'_

_'Fine but on your head be it,'_ they replied in unison.

"Allons-y."

"They actually did it, they dropped the defences because you asked them?"

"You'd be surprised what asking nicely can get you, come on we only have a few minutes to escape."

They both ran from the house and out past the perimeter. The so-called island defence was easy to get around, Rose had made a boat that folded neatly into a twelve dimensional space. All you had to do was take it out of your pocket, push a button on the key fob and throw it into the water; _'poof'_ instant boat.

Rassilon didn't betray her until they were ashore; he used something he had cooked up to knock her out for the count and made a run for it.

* * *

Rose awoke with a pounding headache three hours, twenty seven minutes and thirty four seconds later. At least her time senses were working alright she mused.

 _'We told you it was a bad idea,'_ Fred and George stated in unison.

 _'Relax he can't have gotten far,'_ Rose replied to the TARDIS network at large who were abuzz with the news Rassilon's escaped and in a panic.

 _'It was fine,'_ Sexy told them all and got a few thousand reminders about her tenses in nervous reply. _'Come my Wolf, lets go hunting together and give the arrogant whelp a lesson in manners.'_

Rose didn't need telling twice, she slipped into her meditative state, found the music and embraced The Bad Wolf fully.

It was an easy thing for her to find him, he was a mile away hiding in a barn because he had managed to trip and seriously injure his ankle. He needed somewhere safe to heal the damage. In a swirl of golden light The Bad Wolf was no longer where she had awoken and stood glowing in front of him.

She could see Rassilon in his entirety, there was something fundamentally broken inside of him, just like there once was with her Doctor, like then there is only one way to fix it, through regeneration, although this time there is no need for subterfuge to make it happen.

"How? That should be impossible to do, even for a child of the TARDIS!"

She replied in an ethereal voice, "The Eternals placed limits upon you, there is much you cannot do without help, but I am The Bad Wolf, I create myself and I can do much myself you can never do. I am a Wolf, and you are a lost little lamb, you will do well to remember that. You are broken, I can see it, and I fix it."

The Bad Wolf held out her hand pointing at Rassilon and the Time Lord burst into golden flames in the most painful regeneration he ever experienced in his long life and quickly fell unconscious.

Rose let go of the power, and fell unconscious herself into a deep healing coma.

* * *

Lucky for her Rose was the first one to wake up. Rassilon was still unconscious lying in a pile of orange straw. He was still tall and lanky although taller than before, but he was younger in his early thirties by human standards, his hair was a honey blond colour and stuck up in every direction, his nose was big and he had a strong jaw line, all in all he wasn't bad looking. She wondered what eye colour he had, she hoped it had changed from the deep chocolate brown that was the exact shade and shape as her second Doctor's, it had hurt to look into those eyes and see the emptiness in them.

She decided before he woke up she'd better get on with plan B. The Wolf looked through all of his pockets and removed everything she found there, he had a few weapons that he'd cooked up as well so she destroyed them. Next the younger woman injected a tracking device in his skin to make it easier for her to find him again, also a proximity monitor, it made him uncomfortable if he got too far away from her. She had been planning this outing for a long time, and it was amazing what she could make herself after being left on her own in that place. She suspected the only reason Rassilon hadn't escaped is all the TARDIS modules that had guarded him over the years.

She'd just about finished when he woke up, he shot up and looked at her, his baby blue eyes widening in fear as he looked at her but soon covered it up. "That hurt!"

"Well that's what you get for being an asshole."

She knew Time Lords well; the one thing they all fear most is regeneration. It was why they didn't try to do experiments on her anymore, not after the first time, and one of the main reasons they fear her. It seems Rassilon fears regeneration as well; good knowing she could do that to him will keep him in line.

"My robes don't fit anymore, these were my best pair too. So I'm taller," he started to run his hands through his hair, "lots of hair that's something to be thankful for. The whole skullcap fashion started because one of my early regenerations was bald. That was just before they locked me up." He started feeling his face now, "oh my... That is one honker of a nose. I just have one question, it's very serious, and I need to know immediately. Am I ginger?"

Rose burst out into laughter, it reminded her of the Doctor, hers had asked her that, and this universe's asked the same when he was with her and regenerated into his fifth self.

"What, it's a serious question, I've always wanted to be ginger, five hundred and sixty eight regenerations and I've never once been ginger."

"You sound like the Doctor is all, he's always wanted to be ginger as well."

"It's a great colour. Can't say I blame him."

"Well sorry to disappoint you, your hair is a honey blond colour."

"Damn it."

There was a giggle and they turned to see a little girl peeking her head out from behind a haystack. She was maybe six years old wearing dirt-covered overalls, dirt smudged over her freckled face, and her brown hair in pigtails.

"Hello there," Rassilon greeted her amiably.

"Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times," she informed him smartly.

"Oh well, regenerating still, it does a number on your head, must have miscounted. I'm Adit, what's your name?"

"Jesserica."

"That's a good name, mine's kind of rubbish."

"Jesserica, are your parents nearby?" Rose cut in. "My friend here had an accident and just regenerated so we took shelter in your barn. If they have clothes that would fit him you'd be doing him a big favour, his robes are rather torn up and too short."

"My Daddy is the same size as him!" She exclaimed excitedly. "I'll go get him."

Once the girl had gone Rose looked at him, "Adit?"

"Could hardly tell her I'm Lord Rassilon immortal founder of the Time Lords could I? Adit is from Earth, Indian, it means _'from the beginning'_ , seems fitting don't you think."

"You don't look Indian, but being off of Earth you can pull it off."

So the adventure began, they got civilian clothes for Rassilon so he could blend in, and wondered the Southern Continent. Meeting people and when possible Rose helped out and made Rassilon help with her. He slowly began to change, and was genuinely appalled at the conditions the lower class lived in. He spent a lot of time showing them how to build simple devices to make their lives easier that cost little to make, so he became known as The Inventor.


	8. Chapter 7

Five years later The Wolf and The Inventor arrived in a small fishing town. It was quite pleasant, both suns were in the sky and there was a cool breeze off the coast. It was market day and they found lots of people selling their catch but it seemed like so little.

Rassilon looked around more closely and noted the hungry starved look on some people, and all the villagers looked rather lean. He purchased some really overpriced smoked fish from a very grateful vendor, who seems to have hardly sold anything all day.

"Wolf, there is something going on here." 

"I noticed. This is some of the richest fishing grounds in Gallifrey and yet they have nothing."

So they poked around and found the villagers to be rather skittish. It wasn't until a few hours later they found out why. A bunch of big men with weapons came along and started taking almost everything the people had gathered.

Angry Rose approached the men as they loaded everything into the cargo vessel they had arrived in. "What are you doing? These people can hardly feed themselves."

"Not my problem lady, we're just here to collect the landlord's weekly taxes. What we are doing is perfectly legal."

"Legal! This is robbery."

Rassilon grabbed Rose by the shoulder and dragged her back, "come on we're not helping anyone by making a scene."

"But we have to do something."

"There is nothing we can do here. Not with those guys, they're just following orders, probably so they can feed their own families."

"So what do you suggest?"

"I could kill the landlord."

"No. No killing, why are you always wanting to kill people?"

"It's the easy way compared to your _'always leave them alive'_ way. Some people deserve death."

"Killing people is never the right answer. Sometimes it may be necessary but it should always be a last resort. All killing ever brings is more death."

Rassilon let out a sigh, "fine no killing then. What do you suggest we do?" 

"Find out why this landlord is doing this and sort it out."

The pair of them ended up as stowaways on the cargo vessel that took them to a processing facility where everything was sorted into piles then taken away in different cargo vessels presumably to go through manufacturing.

From there Rose accessed a terminal and hacked in. "Seems this all belongs to the House of Kelldery not one of the powerful houses, but they have been rising lately. Seems their sudden increase of income is coming from exploiting the people living off of their lands. This all started when Lord Geleric took over as head of house a year ago."

"Now what? Expose what he's been doing to the population at large."

"Cause too many riots. No we need to dig up some dirt and threaten to expose them. Something politically damaging preferably, all corrupt politicians have something."

"In my day this would be considered politically damaging, we took better care of the lower classes and didn't exploit people. It's disgusting what they are doing here, and it used to be the government would actually care."

"Welcome to the future."

"If I ever get back into power the first thing I'm going to do is stop things like this."

"Sounds great, just no killing when you do."

"Not even a little bit?" Rose just had to give him a look and he got his reply, "no killing, got it."

Using a combination of transport vehicles they stowed away in and an illegal transmat the pair of them ended up outside the House of Kelldery dressed as maintenance engineers. It wasn't hard to get in; apparently they were having problems with the new oven. They were told how to find the kitchens but otherwise left alone in the large mansion.

Rose managed to find her way into the computer mainframe but was having problems getting past the firewall around all Lord Geleric's personal files.

"Let me try," Rassilon said and took over, "there just a matter of math to work around the computer's base codes. Now what have we got here? Hmm several affairs with lower class people but no one important so that won't work. Two unauthorised offspring but that's a fine at best. Oh hello, seems he's embezzling money from family and political funds to fund his gambling habit."

"That could work. Make copies of the evidence."

"Already done, and set to accidentally end up as front page news in a half dozen major papers that circulate around the panopticon, as well as the deplorable conditions of his tenants. All you need to do is give the word."

"Sometimes I do actually like how you think."

The Wolf and The Inventor sneaked into Lord Geleric's office and lay in wait. It only took an hour before man in question showed up. Lord Geleric walked into his office only for the door to slam and lock behind him. He looked around to see the two of them with carefully pleasant looks upon their faces. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Never mind who we are," Rose said and brought up a display on the 3D monitor. "Looks like you've been a bad boy, embezzling money."

"Is that what this is about, how much do you want to keep quiet?"

"Oh no, we don't want money. What we want is for you to start taking a reasonable amount of tax from your tenants instead of the eighty percent you take at the moment."

"What! Never!"

"I guess we'll have to just make it go public then."

"Ha you wouldn't dare!" Lord Geleric blustered and hit a hidden panic button they hadn't noticed before.

"On your head be it then," Rose said and pressed the button for her emergency teleport and released the data. In a flash they were both in a crowded street of the nearby city and her teleporter fizzled out. "Damn cheep emergency teleport."

"Just count us lucky that we made it out in one piece, those cheap ones can end up leaving body parts behind."

Of course pretty soon they were surrounded by a squad of the CIAs Special Forces, although Rose had never seen so many at once. She put up her hands as a crowd gathered.

"The two people known as The Wolf and The Inventor are to come with us, you have escaped from a maximum security facility, in which you were both imprisoned for meddling with the time space continuum."

"Oh hello, it's Falaxisiniumerarian, Falax, been a while, you never get out from behind your desk." In truth the man was pretty much running the Celestial Intervention Agency these days, and had never been fond of her from when they first met just after she awoke on that table and had three people regenerating in front of her, he had come in to yell and ask questions.

"Shut up bitch," he replied.

"Hay that's not a nice thing to call her. See Wolf the therapy and lessons on manners are helping."

"No it's okay, I mean a female wolf is technically a bitch, so I am a bitch."

"Keep quiet both of you. Now Wolf, Inventor if you will come quietly we will not need to use force."

"I've got something I need to say," Rassilon spoke up loudly in a carrying voice looking to the large crowed that had gathered to watch. "My name is not The Inventor but the CIA wouldn't want all of you to know that. I am really Lord Rassilon immortal founder of the Time Lord race. I escaped my prison five years ago, and since then I have walked the Southern Continent meeting all kinds of people, mostly good people. Ordinary working Gallifreyans and they are some of the best people you can ever meet, and I am appalled at the treatment they receive, especially the lowest classes, they get no education to speak of and needlessly suffer. The Time Lords have forgotten they are the same as you, only difference is they looked into time and level of education-" he was cut-off as one of the agents knocked him out with a stun gun.

"That's enough of that nonsense. Miss Wolf, you coming peacefully?"

Rose just glared at him. She felt like spontaneously regenerating the man on the spot but wouldn't do it, not after all the lecturing she's given Rassilon on the subject of needless violence. She knew they'd catch up eventually, and she has made great progress with her charge.

The agents picked up Rassilon and flung his dead weight not so gently into a prison transport. When it was Rose's turn she was shoved into a different transport but there was only one masked agent in the containment area with her. Once the transport started up he pulled off his mask and Rose grinned, "Tiny, long time no see."

The man grinned back; he'd regenerated a couple times since she had first met the man. He was no longer a walking muscle but an average built man with shaggy brown hair and green eyes. "Yeah, been worried about you, Rossadelaser hasn't been allowed to tell me where you are. Looks like they put you in with the madman Lord Rassilon. But I'm not worried you have a gift for healing those around you, with exposure to you for long enough he'd become a hippy in no time."

Rose laughed at the image, "he's softened somewhat, but he'd still kill if he thinks its justified and there is very little that will not do it for him."

"Better than killing people for just disagreeing with him, or just because."

"I bet there was widespread panic when we escaped."

"Ha, got that right, when the defences went down it was suddenly like they picked up the Dalek armada on long range scanners."

Rose laughed then stopped suddenly. "Wait, how do you know what a Dalek is, I've only ever mentioned them once in front of you and Davros was stillborn in this universe so there never was any here to start with."

Her friend suddenly seemed incredibly old then as he stared into space lost in memories. After a moment he said, "guess you caught me. I'm not from this universe originally, I'm from yours."

"What? But The Doctor said he was the only one left."

"As far as he knows he is, I got myself trapped in another universe not long before he set the time lock. This universes' Time Lords answered my distress call, but they wouldn't allow me to go back once I explained things, said it was too risky. I was never born here so I was allowed to stay. I met someone and fell in love not long after being stranded and she healed most of my wounds. I've had a second family and sometimes it makes me feel guilty for all I have and the Doctor hasn't. My name is Irving Braxiatel; I used to be a collector mostly and lived off of Gallifrey before the war. Funny how you take for granted that something would always be there until you lose it."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay Rose, I'm in a good place with how things went now. When you make your final break for it and go back to your own universe I want to go with you."

"But what about your family here?"

"My wife died a long time ago and the rest will be fine without me. Besides they altered all of us during the war so we will live longer; people were dying and regenerating so quickly, so they made sure we could all regenerate more. Each person has the maximum amount of regenerations their body can handle, it's different for each Time Lord but its normally over five hundred times instead of twelve. I've gone through five in the time I've been here, and really don't want to clue the others into the fact I'm different or they'd want to study me. Also I'm concerned about The Doctor."

"Ok Irving-"

"Brax, call me Brax."

"Brax then. Well Brax when I finally leave this place I'll gladly take you with me."


	9. Chapter 8

That was their first escape together and they had many more afterwards. The Time Lords tried building up security even more, they limited the access to what tools and equipment they had to build with and even posted guards on the perimeter but nothing kept them back for long once they decided it was time to escape, just meant they needed to get more creative.

The news that Lord Rassilon was alive spread like wildfire among the population of Gallifrey thanks to his first little speech and the CIA knocking him out mid speech only exacerbated the rumour that Rassilon genuinely had changed, he can no longer stop himself from caring. He yelled about it once frustrated, because everyone dies and leaves him behind, it had gotten easier to just not care. Rose replied that those people never die as long as he remembers them, nothing remembered is ever truly gone, and despite the pain of loss she has never once for one moment let herself forget her Doctor because remembering those you lose can keep you going, give you something to fight for.

Rassilon doesn't even bother hiding who he is while on Gallifrey, he'll openly tell any of the people they help who he is hoping to shame the Time Lords into doing more. Although sometimes he spends a lot more time dispelling rumours and legends that have built up about himself. For a start he wasn't born into one of the Houses his parents were simple farmers; no he didn't decree all Time Lords should be loomed not born, the infertility was a side effect of being a Time Lord because the women's advanced immune systems kill off sperm but can actually be gotten around by introducing your own regenerative energy to the mother, he's even done so himself once, it definitely had nothing to do with Pythia and a curse, they didn't have a fight actually they were married for a while. And don't get him started on all the so-called objects of Rassilon that have reported mythical properties, most of them don't do anything. Honestly he wouldn't be surprised if someone stole his underpants and said they had mystical qualities.

When they took trips off world he didn't go by Rassilon though, he used the name his people gave him, The Inventor. He needed a certain amount of anonymity then, but there wasn't a single Time Lord they met out there that didn't know who he really was, apparently the rumours had even been spread throughout the renegades.

"You have no idea how much trouble I'll be in for this," Ross said in way of greeting as he sat down beside Rose in the corner of the house/prison she claimed for herself as a lab and tossed the Dimension Cannon down on her workbench.

"Na, going to let you have that, need to make a copy first, just don't tell them I have more than one."

"Why?"

"Remember when we first met? Seven hundred years ago now. I told you then, showed you even, about the stars. It's going to reach here soon. It's time for me to go."

"Brax said he's going with you."

"He's not had much keeping him here since his wife died, his family just about tolerate him."

"I want to go too."

"This thing only works because something has broken the barriers between universes, it might be a one way trip. I can't let you do that, unlike Brax, you belong here to start with, and you have Naomi."

"It's going to be dangerous."

"When did I ever let that stop me?"

Ross let a smile touch his lips. "True. I'm going to miss you Rosie."

"Going to miss you too, and miss Gallifrey, heck I'll even miss Rassilon, something I never thought I'd say in a thousand years."

He laughed this time. "Speaking of which, why is he currently on the front lawn making rockets out of food products?"

"Boredom mostly. Also I made the mistake of letting him watch Mythbusters last time we were on Earth."

"What?"

"It's a TV show on Earth during the 21st century, they use science to prove or disprove if you can do something according to a myth. The episode we watched they made a rocket out of salami and he's decided to ignore all the _'don't try this at home'_ warnings and see what other food he can make a rocket out of. Also told him you might need a distraction to smuggle the Dimension Cannon in."

"Worked too, the guards were way too interested in what he's doing, they were actually taking bets on how far the nyrox sausages would go when I checked in."

"Got to love the wacky science of it all. Although blokes are all the same they're all there to see the wanton destruction."

And so the two of them just talked about everything and nothing until Rose was done and Rossadelaser had to leave with the Dimension Cannon, and Rose was left hoping it would all work.

* * *

Of course once Rassilon got hold of the Dimension Cannon he took one look and asked how the hell it was supposed to work and get the right universe. So Rose told him all about all the different universes she has been to, how long she's been working on it, and about the main controller being in Pete's World, that was just a remote.

The next week was very educational for Rose because Rassilon taught her everything he could about parallel worlds, bubble universe, micro universes and all sorts of things she never dreamed about. But most important he showed her how to do the math and theory on how to safely travel between universes even with the walls sealed. She was surprised how much her Time Lord brain could absorb and how fast she could learn and process information, it was the first time she learned something new, everything she had been using had been force fed information from the TARDIS.

The following week was spent making prototypes for a brand new Dimension Cannon with a lot of help from Rassilon along the way. When she was done she had a device that could be held in your hand and didn't need a separate unit the size of a room to tell it where to go, and also will work with the walls sealed for safe travel between every type of universe imaginable. Power was the major issue. It will tap into the Eye of Harmony in this universe to get power, but others it will take a lot of rift energy to power the backup power cells, could take anything from about twenty minutes to a month to power between jumps. Her favourite part was that it also has an inbuilt Vortex Manipulator so she could also travel through time and space with it if needed.

Then just as predicted the stars started to disappear one by one. She was supposed to escape and meet up with Tiny before going back to Pete's World together then onto their home universe. Her plans were brought up flat when the day she was supposed to leave she woke up to find an unexpected visitor in her room.

"Lady President Romanadrovatrelundar, it's a pleasure to see you but what are you doing here?" Rose asked a little shocked.

"Oh Wolf, please don't get all formal on me, it will always be Fred to you and The Doctor."

Rose burst out laughing about the old joke The Doctor started over her name; The Doctor shortened it to Romana which she hated at first, and The Doctor told her it was either Romana or Fred and she told him to call her Fred, not that he did. "Oh Romana, it really is good to see you. I've not seen you much since you came back from E-Space and not at all since your election. How is that going by the way?"

"The policy changes are going slowly but since Rassilon's support on fair treatment of the low classes things have been picking up. Soon we will be offering basic courses in the university on an exchange basis to other races on a similar technological level to us so hopefully that will help get rid of some of the xenophobia."

"That's good."

"I'm here because we have a mission for you and your friends, fully sanctioned by the High Council."

"Let me guess stop the stars going out."

"Yes and no. There's more to it than that. If you go to your version of The Doctor as you are now all indications show it will fail. We've been working on this a long time, if he senses your new biology he won't leave you with a human clone of himself, but that makes things worse because that is a fixed point. We could make you human temporarily but all indications show that won't work either, but what we can do is make a human clone of yourself with your memories but remembers nothing about being in this universe. It's the best option."

"But what about me?"

"We want to send you and your team in to save The Doctor's life further into his time stream. There is a religious order calling themselves The Silence who think The Doctor has to die we don't know why but all indications show if they succeed it will spell great trouble for the entire multiverse. The problem is they have made the events leading to his death fixed, and we need you to find a way around it and save The Doctor."

"Who's going with me?"

"Irving Braxiatel, Rossadelaser, and anyone else you think you need."

"Rassilon."

"What?"

"I need him. The man's a genius when it comes to building things, and if anyone can help me think of a way it's him. Besides he's been cooped up too long, have you seen how his brief jaunts of freedom have helped him? Heck he's that sane and friendly now he's even taught the guards how to play poker and other stuff, there is this one guard here who has been bringing his kid for remedial science classes with him. He's doing well now."

"Fine, to be honest there has been talk of releasing both of you, the people are starting to make demands about it. There always was some but there has been a lot more of late and it's starting to be heard. If he were to go away on a long mission like this and prove himself it will go a long way to helping against his detractors."

"I have the equipment made already to take us there, just need to finalise some calculations since we'll be going farther into the time stream. Now what I need you to provide me with is two pieces of TARDIS coral, access to power from the Eye of Harmony to get there, was going to do that anyway but easier with permission, enough of the basic elements for two TARDISes and a packet of Jammie Dodgers, or possibly Jelly Babies."

"You've spent too long with The Doctor," Romana laughed. "Fine, I'll even get you both Jelly Babies and Jammie Dodgers. Just one more thing, give this to The Doctor, it's a full pardon for what he had to do in the war, we both know he'll be beating himself up about it and hopefully it will help. And finally good luck Rose Tyler, I know you won't be coming back this time, and we're all going to miss you."

"Going to miss you too. I'll miss this universe's Doctor as well. Tell him next time you see him, London, 26th March, 2005 at 6:15pm in the basement of a department store named Henrick's there is a familiar girl there who needs his help."


	10. Interlude

The Eighth Doctor was curious. He had gotten a message from Romana, Rose was gone. She had left to go back to her original universe and probably would never return. He has known Rose since he was eight years old and he is really going to miss her because the two of them had gotten close in the hundreds of years since. What had gotten him curious was the message she had left with Romana for him, she had told him to be somewhere at a specific time and place and how could he resist something like that?

He arrived early enough to find the place was crawling with Autons, and they had a relay transmitter on the roof. The Doctor went down to the basement and found a man in an office dead, shot by Autons, this wasn't good he was going to need to do something about this and soon. He was stopped dead in his tracks when he heard a familiar voice only with a bit more cockney in the accent that it had lost over the years but the same none the less.

"Wilson! Wilson I've got the lottery money! Wilson are you there?" She called walking up to the office of the dead man he had locked behind him and rattling the door. "I can't hang about because they are closing the shop."

The Doctor's breath caught as he saw her, and his hearts started beating a funny rhythm in his chest, it looked like Rose only she was human, he had never thought to check if there was a Rose Tyler in this universe. She didn't see him hidden in the shadows watching her, but they both heard a noise, and she turned and started heading in that direction.

"Hello? Hello, Wilson it's Rose." She moved into a storeroom where they kept spare shop dummies and turned on the light. Not good was all the Doctor could think and followed still unseen. "Wilson?"

The Doctor walked though the door and it closed behind him while Rose was still calling for Wilson who he presumed must be the dead person. He heard Rose coming and hid he was still unsure of this Rose and he also didn't want the Autons seeing him. Rose ran to the doors and tried to open them but couldn't. As there was a noise further in the room Rose gave up and started tentatively moving in that direction and called out, "is that someone mucking about?" She walked a little further and shouted, "who is it?"

Suddenly the shop dummies started moving and Rose was momentarily transfixed watching them. It seems this Rose is just as jeopardy friendly as the one he grew up with. She started backing up and yelled, "OK I got the joke very funny. Who's idea was it, was it Derricks? Derrick is this you?"

She was well backed into the corner now where The Doctor was already hiding. Reminiscent of what happened a universe away a long time ago the Doctor grabbed her hand and was a little shocked to feel the electric tingle between them, but now wasn't the time to dwell on that, so he said one word, just one word, "run."


	11. Chapter 9

Rassilon, Rossadelaser, Irving Braxiatel and Rose arrived on earth in Rose and Brax's home universe with dimensionally transcendental packs and creates full of supplies. But they were not alone; waiting for them was a woman with curly blond hair who was smiling knowingly at them.

"Hello Sweeties."

"Who by Rassilon are you?" Brax asked then looked at Rassilon sheepishly, "Sorry."

"Oh don't worry I'm quite used to it by now."

Rose laughed. "Still irks you a little though." Rose looked over at the woman who met them here. "Hello River nice to finally meet you."

River looked confused, "Okay this is definitely the first time we've met, and you've only just arrived back in this universe. How did you know who I am?"

"A certain sexy blue TARDIS told me all about you long before we got here Melody Williams." She didn't mind mentioning she could talk to TARDIS in front of everyone here, Rassilon and Ross already knew and she'd be willing to bet Brax did too. He reminds her of The Doctor in the way both of them never miss anything but pretends to be oblivious to everything. As for River she was a child of the TARDIS, just like her and Rassilon are, so she probably already knew as well.

"That doesn't surprise me, if I hadn't grown up with you, she'd have told me all about you as well. Very chatty TARDIS she is." She handed Rose a package. "ID for all of you. Your name is Rose Smith, Rassilon is your older brother Ralph Tyler and Rossadelaser is a year younger since he looks young in that body, also your brother named Ross-"

"Oh come on, do I have to still be Ross? My name is Rossadelaser it means _'stone skipping over the water'_ Ross in common Gallifreyan means _'fish'_."

"It's that or Harry Potter."

Rose laughed and Ross glared. "Oh come on its a common human name, it means headland, much better than fish."

"Fine. Not as if I'm not already used to it."

"Brax is William Smith, your Rose's brother-in-law." She gave him a conspiratorial wink and Brax smirked knowingly at her, and Rose couldn't help but feel like she's missing something.

"What about my husband then?"

"Your husband John and you are separated but not divorced. He's travelling."

This did it for Brax he burst out laughing.

"What?"

"He never told you did he?" Brax asked

"Who told me what?"

"The Doctor, you're married to him."

"I'm what!?"

"The first thing I noticed about you is his mark on you. It's why I trusted you right away."

"Mark!"

"Well it's always been obvious you two are bonded, how could you not know?" Ross asked curiously.

"Well I've spent enough time on Gallifrey to know the spark of electric I always feel when we touch means he's my soulmate but I had no idea we have a mental bond. We certainly never had a bonding ceremony. I'd remember that."

"You've never met a truly bonded couple. The ceremony is only necessary for politically arranged marriages. The actual mental bond is rare now, but when initiated just as binding. Actually more so, can't break the bond," Ross explained.

 _'Bad Wolf'_ the TARDIS spoke up to her as an explanation of when it happened.

"Oh I know how it happened now, but I was human then, and I've only seen him once briefly since becoming telepathic. How was I to know? Although he's got some major explaining to do once we catch up to him." Then Rose looked at Brax. "How does that make you my brother-in-law? That's very specific, it would have been easier to make you another brother or cousin."

Brax gave her a winning smile. "Was waiting to see how long it takes you to figure it out. The Doctor is my little brother, well half brother anyway, we've the same mother but different fathers."

"That certainly explains a lot," Rose muttered.

"In here are deeds and keys to your house in Leadworth starting in 1987, Rose inherited a fortune from an aunt who left almost everything to her and a little to her brothers, and you all decided to move to a small country town away from the city. Also there is Vortex Manipulators in there one set to bring you to your new home base so you can unload your stuff; the others will take you to an orphanage in Florida 1969; you need to rescue me as a six year old girl from The Silence while The Doctor and my parents unwittingly provide a distraction, but you can't let any of the three of them see you. I'm dying because of experiments they have been performing on me since I was a baby, I'm going to regenerate, you need to get me out before that happens and bring me back to Leadworth and after I regenerate I'll be Melody Jones, Rose's foster daughter, all the paperwork is included."

"Why Leadworth in the eighties?" Rassilon asked.

"Because it's the closest you can all bring me to being with my parents, they are there as kids, Amelia Pond and Rory Williams. That's about all I can tell you, just remember to set this all up and send me here to close and open this circular paradox in the future."

Before anyone could ask anymore questions River Song was gone having used her own Vortex Manipulator.

* * *

They drew straws on who gets to go rescue Melody, and Rossadelaser got the shortest straw so he gets to setup base. Upon arrival at the orphanage they found things were not quite right. There were these strange aliens in a black suit and tie of all things and no one seems to notice them except herself and Rassilon.

Brax suddenly caught sight of one and froze. "What are they?"

"Something that shouldn't be in this dimension," Rassilon replied.

"Never seen them before," Rose added.

Brax looked away and then seemed to forget all about the aliens. "Never seen what?"

"The aliens."

"What aliens?"

"But you were just pointing them out, don't you remember?"

"No." He caught sight of one again. "Wow what is that?" He asked again.

"The aliens," Rose replied exasperated.

He looked away at Rose again and said, "What aliens."

"They're wearing black suits and are kind of grey, look like what people in this time period think of as the typical alien but taller. It seems every time you look away they somehow edit themselves out of your memory but it don't work on me because I can see loads of them and remember seeing them."

"Won't work on me either," Rassilon added, "Our brains work differently because we are children of the TARDIS. This isn't good. They should be sealed away in another dimension, I did so myself, and I'm sure I did so here as well; I'm the only one who could have released them."

"So you think the version of you from here must have done it before the time lock. But why?"

"Can only think of two reasons, one I'm insane and desperate, two to kill the Doctor to break the time lock."

"What you'd try and kill your own son?" Rose asked then added, "Don't act so shocked it really wasn't hard to figure out. His mother comes to visit you once a year at least and you preen yourself like a peacock before she gets there. The Doctor is a womb born Gallifreyan born of Time Lord parents and you claim to have a child the natural way, never said had, always in present tense. Also you act so much alike."

"You're very clever and good at observing things, knew I couldn't keep it from you for long."

"Does he know?"

"He knows. He's always been afraid of turning into me, going insane. I am so changed now I can never imagine doing anything to harm my son, and I actually feel guilty for what an alternate version of me has done. But you know what I was like when we first met, and imagine the madness brought on by the Time War; I must be a million times worse. So the answer is no _'I'_ wouldn't but this universe's version of me wouldn't bat an eyelash about it."

"What are they?" Brax asked softly.

"Toclafane, the beings behind the myth. They don't like Time Lords because of the mental buzzing, the telepathic connection all Time Lords share, which means these perception filters I made to block The Doctor is actually working; but getting off topic, the Toclafane hate us because that low level telepathic field creates a buzzing in their heads that is irritating. They tried to wipe us out before to silence the noise; at least a crazy sect of them did, they called themselves The Silence. I had guessed that it was the same Silence but seeing the Toclafane here just proves it."

"Well we can't just leave a little girl here with them lets get her out of here," Brax suggested.

They got their chance not long after. The Doctor's companions showing up distracted the Silence, and the companions in turn were distracted by the Silence. Rose found the little girl who had been running around scribbling 'get out' on the walls and said, "Hello Melody. I'm Rose; this is Brax and Rassilon. We're here to help."

"I escaped from the suit but now I think I'm dying."

"It's going to be okay sweetie, just hold my hand and come with me."

The young girl looked at her and then making a decision took her hand. Rose gave the signal and they used their Vortex Manipulators and arrived in Leadworth 1987 where Ross was unpacking things.

Melody gave a bit of a giggle when she saw Ross pull an object out of one of the crates that was six times bigger than said crate, but stopped and winced holding her stomach like it hurt.

"It's OK sweetie, your going to be fine," Rose said kneeling down in front of her but was now careful not to touch her.

Ross looked up from what he was doing and noticed them for the first time; he was absorbed in his work before. "What's wrong with her?" He walked up but Rose stopped him from touching.

"She's been heavily experimented on and is dying."

Brax punched a nearby wall in anger, "Who would do something like that to a kid?"

"It burns," Melody said starting to cry.

"Have you ever heard the story of the phoenix?" Rassilon asked kneeling beside Rose and continued when she nodded, "The phoenix dies by bursting into flames, but from it the phoenix is also reborn. I need you to be a good little Phoenix for me and let it go and be born anew, don't be scared we're all here for you."

"It hurts," she sobbed.

"I know my little Phoenix but it will hurt more the longer you hold it in. Trust me I've done it loads of times before, all of us here have at least once. It will be better after I promise."

Melody nodded and let go as she burst into the golden fire of regeneration. When she was done she was now a young black girl but looked healthier. "That- new teeth that's odd and my accent. I'm the wrong colour!"

"You look perfect to me sweetie," Rose told her smiling.

"I feel weird."

"Your still regenerating, you'll be feeling strange for a bit."

Rassilon picked the girl up who squealed but in an exuberant sort of way. "Come on Phoenix, best get you a bedroom. You need to get some sleep after that, and you can tell me what you want to do with your room while you settle down."

When he and Melody disappeared upstairs Brax and Ross turned and looked at Rose, it was Ross who finally spoke, "How did she regenerate? She should be too young and she hasn't looked into the Untempered Schism."

"I'm not entirely sure, I know it has something to do with being exposed in utero to the background radiation of the TARDIS, but other than that my best guess is all the experiments they did on her." Rose sighed. "Have you found the medical kit yet? She's going to need tannin."

"No but there is tea in the kitchen."

"Better get on with it then," Rose replied and headed to the kitchen to make tea.


	12. Chapter 10

Rassilon had done many things in his long and eventful life, but painting a wall was not one of them. He had settled young Melody into her new room after her regeneration. She slept for the rest of the day, all night and a good portion of the next day too; but not before she had told him she wanted her room to be bright and colourful because the Silence had mostly kept her in clean sterile surroundings, white being the favoured colour to use. That is how he ended up painting her room with bright pink paint that seemed to like sticking to him more than the wall, where as Brax didn't have a spot on him as he painted the ceiling sky blue instead of the traditional white. They didn't want their little girl having nightmares when she woke up staring at a white ceiling.

Rose was in the basement setting up her equipment so she could start growing two TARDISes, which with all the modifications should take about six years to finish instead of thousands. It was certainly much easier than trying to find a pocket universe where time moves slower so that they could grow them. Ross was also in the basement but he was setting up a perception filter on the door to stop people noticing the house even had a basement, along with complicated locking mechanisms as backup because they didn't want anyone to stumble in on all the advanced technology in here, or anyone detecting it so there was shielding as well.

Mels was out playing with the local kids her age, including her parents. Ross had finished what he was doing when Mels came rushing in the kitchen with a young Amy and Rory behind her. "Ross, guess what?"

"What?" He asked indulgently.

"A blue box fell out of the sky last night and demolished Amy's shed, then a man crawled out all wet saying he had fallen into the swimming pool in the library."

"What's the swimming pool doing in the library?" Brax asked as he came in laughing, and started washing the paint roller in the sink.

"That's what I asked," Amy informed him. "He didn't seem to know, he just started asking for foods he said he liked then kept spitting them out."

"Let me guess, new taste buds?" Brax asked knowingly. He really was trying very hard not to laugh he could just imagine the state his little brother was in.

"That's what he said," Amy confirmed. "How'd you know?"

"Well why else would you spit out stuff you said you liked," he replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"He said his name was The Doctor, and he fixed the crack in her wall," Mels informed him. "Said it was actually a crack in the skin of the world."

"Then he left, he said he was only going to be five minutes but he never came back."

Brax took a look round as if to check no one was nearby before whispering in a conspiratorial manner, "Oh I'm sure he will be back eventually, he's just a really, really bad driver."

That's how things started with life in Leadworth. They all continued to be the only ones in the small town who didn't say Amy was nuts or making up stuff for attention (well other than Rory of course). Amy however just thought they were all humouring her.

Rassilon ended up being the local science teacher, and fond of blowing stuff up in front of the kids and he did practical experiments whenever possible getting everyone involved. Mels was a handful to say the least, she was always telling the teachers the answer was The Doctor did it, or wanted it to happen, etc. At home though the four of them made sure Mels learned everything they could teach her, her real problem was that she was too smart and gets bored very easy.

Both TARDISes matured after six years and much to Rose's delight and Rassilon's annoyance Fred and George moved into them. The newest feature in these TARDISes is that they have the ability to talk to their pilots/passengers using the holographic interface and send text messages on screen. Rassilon hated this, sighting the reasons it wasn't done in the first place is because they give too much forewarning of events to come and it's never a good thing to know too much about your own future. Rose was in charge though so he didn't get his way, and she plainly told him this was a matter for Time Lords from this universe, and that left it up to Brax and The Doctor, and maybe her and Mels if you squint.

Brax was given George because his temperament matched him best of the two, and Rose claimed Fred as her own not just by default but because she loved his cheeky mischievous nature; he was far more of a prankster than George.

When it came time to take them for their first test flights it was Mels birthday so they decided for a treat they would, take her to the giant carnival on Fun World, that's the name of the planet, not the most imaginative name but apt for a pleasure planet.

Mels went with Ross and Brax in George, and that left her and Rassilon to meet up with them in Fred. Rose was checking everything was in order, the architectural reconfiguration machine was up and running with all the basic elements it needs and the start of a good growth of living metal, which is the longest part of growing a TARDIS. The engines are running well on rift energy; Leadworth for some reason seems to be full of it, and even more active than Cardiff which is strange because Cardiff is supposed to be the most active rift on Earth which is why there is a Torchwood base there.

"Why is there two libraries?" Rassilon asked in way of greeting as he entered the control room after a brief look around the ship.

"It's an idea from Sexy. She came up with it ages ago. Basically you have curious companions who will look around and find it strange there is no library because she has to hide it to stop them from reading things that could be potentially damaging to the time lines. So to stop them from looking too hard there is two libraries, the main archive with every book in existence in there, and the cosy little one that only stores books companions are allowed to see. She let me see the main library on his TARDIS once, have to say I was impressed by the sheer size of it."

He rolled his eyes. "No sense at all, the lot of you. The more unnecessary rooms the more power, and no eye of harmony here to have limitless power." He stood and looked contemplatively into thin air, then his eyes lit up. "Found one!"

"Found what?"

"Was searching timelines for a star that is the same size and chemically the same consistency as the original Eye of Harmony in a part of space that is irrelevant to major time lines since there is no planets orbiting the star."

"You can do that? Just search timelines like that?"

"So can you, you've just never tried it. Anyway do you know what this means!?"

"You get to do one of your favourite activities and blow something up?"

"Technically implode, but that's not the point, we can have a working Eye here."

"Is it worth it for only three TARDISes?"

"It's more than worth it, because that's not all we're going to do with it. I've got the start of a plan, and we need a working Eye to have enough power indefinitely to pull it off."

"What?"

"We're going to use it to lock The Silence back into their own dimension, and while we're at it use it to keep the Time Lock closed on the Time War. However, we're going to need to make it first, and I'll need specialised equipment from Gallifrey; think we can send Rossadelaser on his annual trip home to see his wife early with a requisition order? After all Romana did say anything we need."

"George and I can make everything you need but if it's going to use most of our living metal then it will take a very long time to grow more, so we'd prefer it if you can get what you can from them," Fred said using the image of James Phelps at age 14 who had played Fred Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, where he started the first film at that age.

Rassilon near jumped out of his skin at the sudden appearance of the holographic image, "it's going to take some getting used to them being able to do that. I'm used to them talking in my head not out loud beside me."

Rose laughed and added, "Never mind him Fred he's just jealous that you're ginger. Nice image by the way."

"Thank you, it seemed appropriate. My brother and I extrapolated the images from the first ever Harry Potter movie. The thirty sixth century holographic version would have been easier but this is more familiar to you."

"Got to love the classics. Now Fred we have a little girl's twelfth birthday to attend. Lets test the auto pilot and take us to meet George at Fun World."

The carnival was a lot of fun. They arrived in a section dedicated to Harry Potter thanks to Fred and George's sense of humour, and camouflaged themselves as giant statues of the Weasley twins and came out of a hidden door in their backsides. At least Mels found that hilariously funny. All the shops in the area were from the books, there was Honeydukes, The Leaky Cauldron, and of course they landed outside of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. There were rides themed after it as well like a roller coaster shaped like a giant broomstick which took them on a journey to get the golden egg and avoid the dragon; and since they are in they were in the fifty-first century a lot of the rides were antigravity, so it was actually possible to play a tamed down version of quidditch. That's where Mels met a boy her age named John who seemed familiar to Rose.

John was here on holiday or vacation as he called it in an American accent. He, his parents and little brother Grey were from a colony called the Boeshane Peninsula and this was their first big trip off world.

There was more than just Harry Potter stuff, there was Superman, Spider Man, and about every other cartoon imaginable themed areas, as well as normal carnival themed stuff.

They arrived at one ride and Rose's face split into a wide grin. "Anti-gravity motorcycle races. I've not ridden one in years."

"Right through a twelfth storey window if I remember your wrap sheet correctly," Ross replied.

"How else was I supposed to get in the building? They wouldn't let me in through the door," Rose said as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, "but before that, the guy who taught me how to ride also taught me stunts, and he had the most amazing obstacle course."

"Well your in luck, looks like they are running qualifier rounds for the Fun World Antigravity Olympics," Brax pointed out.

"Be right back," Rose said and used the teleport on her vortex manipulator to go back to her TARDIS. She came back on a converted TARDIS blue Norton motorbike. The button to turn on the antigravity was shaped and looked like the light on top of The Doctor's TARDIS, and Rose was wearing her TARDIS blue leather jacket she always travelled in but now had matching leather boots and trousers, with a helmet that matched that had a dark visor obscuring the face of the rider. "What do you think?"

"You're feeling a little blue?" Rassilon smirked.

"Where'd you get that?" John asked in awe as he examined the bike along with Mels.

"Had it in the garage of our ship," Rose replied nonchalantly. In truth Fred had just made it for her and she couldn't wait to try it out.

 _'He made it to look like me to try and impress me,'_ Sexy told Rose as she put on the helmet so they wouldn't see her trying not to laugh. _'Still won't beat the one I made for my Thief.'_

 _'That's completely in flux, you can't tell that,'_ Fred argued.

_'Wait The Doctor's here?!'_

_'Just keep the helmet on; he won't recognise you with it. Increasing the setting on the perception filters you all wear just in case,'_ George added.

Rose felt like living on the wild side for once. Besides it would be nice to beat The Doctor in a race, even if she can't rub it in until later. She discreetly warned the others that he was around here somewhere and entered herself into the qualifiers as _'The Wolf'_.

She was lucky during the qualifying rounds she didn't run into The Doctor, but once the actual race was to start he ended up beside her in the starting area. She prayed he wouldn't notice the rose on her fuel tank with _'Bad Wolf'_ in Gallifreyan written inside it. He came over to her and she nearly stopped breathing the urge to reach out and touch him was so great. Looking at those beautiful green eyes she remembered the kiss in the lake and how they smouldered when looking at her, and she flushed.

"That's a really beautiful bike," he said to her and started to examine it. "Classic twentieth century Earth, Norton. Not many of those around now."

Rose was glad he couldn't see her ogling him from behind her visor, it was just like him to enter a race like this one wearing tweed and a bow tie. His Time Lord physiology would mean he would heal really quick from potential accidents, she would do the same now, but all the same best not to invite trouble, although lord knows trouble finds them often enough anyway. She saw him getting his sonic screwdriver out of an inside pocket, and came out of her trance. "Oi! No sonic devices near my bike."

"But I was only scanning-"

"Don't care mate, point that thing near me or my bike and I'll cry foul to the officials."

That had him scampering back to his own bike, just in time too because the race was about to start. During the entire race she was neck and neck with The Doctor and they were in the lead but at the last moment they crashed into each other, everyone else made it across the finish line before them and she finally made it across the finish line pushing the bike and running with the Doctor hot on her heals leaving him to come in last. She was glad she had an inertia-cancelling device on her bike in case of an accident; it stopped them from getting hurt.

The Doctor disappeared not long after the race and she was both glad and sad to see him go. She missed him with an intense ferocity but she had to stay out of the events of his life until his death as much as possible if she's to find a way to save him, she can't afford to become a fixed point in those events if she is to change them. It wasn't until sometime later it dawned on her she'd yelled at him about sabotage in Gallifreyan.

They ended up spending two weeks there and John and Mels were inseparable the entire time. It was actually really cute to see the young puppy love. Mels was a little heartbroken when they both had to leave but not before John managed to win her a stuffed animal and a locket on a golden necklace at the games using the tickets he'd collected. Mels has never taken the locket off ever since. There was also a small incident with a Slitheen who were trying to sabotage the park's safety rating so the family could buy it cheaply. Rassilon was morbidly curious about the miniaturisation device on the skin suit.

But all in all it was a good trip.


	13. Chapter 11

Romana delivered, they got all the equipment needed but only if they had some of their engineers there while creating the Eye. So the next two years was spent in negotiations for what they needed and how many engineers to send. Rassilon wasn't stupid; he knew they were there to gather lost knowledge about how the Eye of Harmony was created. The thing is he had made sure that knowledge was lost for a very good reason; it was very dangerous knowledge to have.

The engineers already knew how to collapse a star, it was the moving it into a planet they had no idea about, and he had no intentions of filling in the gap in their knowledge. To keep this Eye safe he created a space-time pocket and placed it inside. Time doesn't move inside the pocket placing it into a permanent state of decay. As for anyone that travels to the system they won't find anything there and no traces of there ever having been a star there in the first place. As an added layer of protection there are deadly defence drones around the new Eye of Harmony that both exist and don't exist inside of space-time.

It took another two years to get the systems up and running enough to allow them to be able to siphon energy off of the implosion and link the TARDISes up to it. It's quite an impressive sight to see from a TARDIS fuel cell room where the link to the Eye causes it to both exist inside of the TARDIS and outside of it as well. It was all very wibbly-wobbly.

They flitted between the project and Leadworth the whole time, and as if the locals didn't already think they where strange, the visiting Time Lords were even worse at blending in. The engineers left and went home both more informed and even more baffled then when they first arrived. Rassilon was happy because he didn't let them know too much about what he was doing, but gave them just enough to be satisfied. The only one he let know more was Rose and that was only because he needed an assistant.

Mels was walking back from school with Amy and Rory grinning. It was her sixteenth birthday.

"Mels, what's been up with you lately?" Amy asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You've not been in trouble once this school year for mentioning The Doctor, and suddenly you're like top of the class."

"Rose promised if I didn't get myself into trouble at school she'd teach me how to ride a motorbike and if I'm really good she'd let me have a go on her old Norton."

"Really? She won't even let me as much as breathe on that bike!" Rory exclaimed.

Amy rolled her eyes, "What do you expect after you took their car apart to see how it worked, stupid face."

"I was seven, and it wasn't my idea, her brother Ralph helped me!"

Mels laughed at the memory of her coming home from a trip to the nearest city with Rose, Ross and Brax only to find Rassilon and Rory covered from head to toe in grease and the spare car in pieces everywhere. "Rose made him go get a job so he'd stop taking things apart out of boredom after that. Although not sure a science teacher was the best idea given how often he's in trouble with the school for blowing something up. They'd have sacked him ages ago if the kids didn't love him so much."

"Your foster family is cool, a little weird but cool. My parents would never let me ride a motorbike," Rory said to change the topic.

"My Aunt wouldn't care so long as I didn't 'cause a scandal'," Amy said sadly.

* * *

Mels arrived in the garage to find a grinning Rose standing outside Fred who was disguised as a closest, holding up a brand new dirt bike. "Wow, is that for me?"

"There is only so much to work with using a provisional licence, and you don't look like a mope-head type of girl. Fred made it so it's got a few extras on there that's best not to tell anyone about, and look it's got phoenixes on it for you."

She grinned reminded of the nickname Rassilon still gave her on occasion. She told him not to call her little but he insisted that when you're as old as he is even Brax, who is twenty-four hundred years old, is little. "So when do we start?"

"Come on I created a starter course in the TARDIS," Rose replied excited.

Mels took hold of her new bike and wheeled it in after Rose, hardly able to wait to get started. But Fred's avatar popped up in the doorway to the rest of the TARDIS, "Sorry to interrupt but Rassilon has a _'little'_ problem in his lab."

Rose raised a brow, "Little problem? I didn't even know he was back from work."

"He didn't show up today. Mr Cunningham, the headmaster, covered his class, he seemed flustered because Rassilon had written his lesson plan in Old High Gallifreyan so he couldn't read it to tell what we're supposed to be doing."

"Typical," Rose replied and they headed to Rassilon's lab, "Rassilon? What's going on? Fred said you had a little problem."

"He would! That's not funny!" A very high-pitched squeaky voice shouted out.

"Seems appropriate to me," Fred replied with a cheeky grin on his face.

"What? Rassilon where are you and why is your voice like that?"

Mels walked toward the place where she'd last seen him and he squeaked out, "No! Stay back!"

But it was too late, Mels disappeared before Rose's eyes then Mels voice much squeakier than before said, "What the hell is going on?"

"Where are you?"

"Down here, on the floor," Mels called back.

Rose looked down at the floor for the first time to see a round tray with a three-inch tall rim on it, and standing in the tray were Rassilon, and now Mels, who had both been shrunk down to a height of half-an-inch tall and were trapped in the tray. "What the f-"

"Compression field. I've been working on it for ages, got the idea from that Slitheen we ran into. Basically anything inside the specified area gets miniaturised."

"And he's been trying to get out all day," Fred added.

"Why didn't you call me to help Fred?" Rose asked hand on hips.

"Not my fault, he told me not to. But I decided enough was enough."

"All I need to do is get out of here, out of the field and I'll be back to normal."

"But you have to scale a wall six times bigger than you are without any hand or footholds! How on Earth did you end up like that?"

"I thought I'd turned it off when I reached for the tray to retrieve my samples and fell in."

"You really need to get one of these," Rose replied and got her sonic screwdriver and used it to turn off the compression field.

Of course now Mels and Rassilon were trying to take up the same space and ended up in a tangled heap on the floor with fragments of the tray flying everywhere, one hitting Rassilon right in the mouth with enough force to break a tooth which he then spat out.

"Damn thing is broken, not clean out," he huffed as he disentangled himself from Mels and inspected the broken tooth with his tongue.

"Let me see," Rose said and proceeded to look into the rather agitated Time Lord's mouth.

He pulled back when she poked it and grumped, "see broken right at the gum line."

"It's going to need to come out."

"So just use that sonic probe of yours to get it out."

"It's a sonic screwdriver and I don't have a setting for teeth."

"It's a probe, it does all sorts of stuff so therefore it is a probe, and what do you mean you haven't got a setting for teeth!"

"It's a screwdriver," Rose argued back and pointed it at a nearby empty shelf and unscrewed the screws holding it to the wall. "See it unscrews screws so therefore it's a screwdriver, and why the hell would I have a setting for teeth! I don't even have a setting for wood, which I really need to take care of it's getting quite embarrassing really."

"You two fight like an old married couple sometimes," Mels said, rolling her eyes.

"God no," Rose shuddered.

"That's a disturbing thought. She's like my adopted daughter, actually is my sort of daughter-in-law if you squint, she's married to an alternate version of my son, the Doctor."

"You're married to The Doctor!?"

"Yep, we have a telepathic mating bond. Not that he told me, the mentally mute semi-human at the time. I've never been interested in another man in the slightest since. On the bright side I know he can't do more than flirt with others. As long as I live he's going to have a whole other sort of 'little' problem with anyone else," Rose smirked. "I'm telling you Mels, never let a man kiss the time vortex out of you, you wake up on the console room floor married without a clue and the man you just married changes right in front of you, literally."

"Think when I finally meet him, I'm going to have fun making him uncomfortable by trying to get a reaction out of him."

"I'd like to see that," Rose laughed, after all a little payback for not telling her about the bond was due. "Okay Rassilon, we're going to have to take you to the dentist."

"What! In the twenty first century? They are barely past having barbers pull teeth and trim your hair at the same time!"

"If you're going to grow a new tooth, you need the root of the old one out first. I mean look on the bright side, humans can't grow new teeth so it could be worse."

Rassilon grumbled something under his breath about dentists and barbers as well as ape descendents as he left the room; he needed a long hot shower.

* * *

They had never registered with any dentist because Time Lords don't need much help with their teeth. Their saliva has a different chemical composition, that although not harmful to humans, it breaks down enzymes better so they don't get plaque build up. If they loose a tooth they simply grow a new one a bit like a child with milk teeth, only it happens every time they lose a tooth. Anything goes wrong they simply pull the tooth to grow a new one, but not so simply here since there were no Gallifreyan medical people around to help. There was not enough of the tooth left for them to pull it without help either.

It took an hour for Rose to find a dentist who was willing to take an unregistered patient in an emergency, and it took two hours to get there with Rassilon grumbling so much she wished she had gone in Fred and not decided to drive there to help with the cover story of why he missed work.

When they got there Rassilon had to wait another hour before they called out for Ralph Tyler. He went into the dentist and sat on the chair and let the dentist check the rest of his teeth, he had no idea why he needed to do so since it was quite obvious which tooth had the problem.

"Hmm this is strange, you have four extra teeth in your mouth. One set on each side beside the wisdom teeth."

"I'm just very wise," Rassilon told the dentist who just laughed.

"Ok, I'm just going to numb your surrounding gum before I pull the tooth, this is going to feel sharp for just a moment."

He near panicked when he saw the long metallic needle the dentist was going to use, but let him stick it into his gum. He didn't lie about it being sharp, and it hurt. Although he really had to wonder why getting a needle stuck into the gum made his eye hurt.

Rassilon took a seat in the waiting room to let the numbness set in but he was feeling funny, he couldn't stop shaking, and when they called him back his legs failed him and he fell face first into the floor. Rose had to help him up and into the treatment room to the chair.

"It appears the adrenalin from the injection has made you shaky, it happens sometimes. I'll just get that tooth out then you can go home," the dentist told them and he pulled the tooth out as quickly as possible, and he yelled in pain despite the numbness, it seemed everywhere was numb but the tooth.

Rose had to help him back to the car, and they drove home in silence because the adrenalin rush had now subsided and he fell asleep not long after getting into the car. All in all another normal day in the life of the Tyler Clan.


	14. Chapter 12

Once Mels finished school she decided to go backpacking round the world to satisfy her yearning for independence and to build herself an identity away from her childhood in Leadworth. The group from Gallifrey all missed the little girl, now grown up, that they had raised from the age of six. Rose gave her a super phone that could call her anywhere any-when with instructions to call her at least once a week. Mels rolled her eyes over Rose's fussing but secretly she loved how she mothered her and agreed to keep in touch.

Then there was the Prisoner Zero debacle, they spent their time avoiding the Doctor but helping at the same time by helping his virus spread round the world to help alert the Atraxi's ship as to the location of their fugitive. They had been monitoring Prisoner Zero's activity but they all hated the fact they couldn't do anything about it because it was fixed, the Doctor had to do it.

Before Prisoner Zero reached the hospital though he attacked Ross who was also taking pictures, just in case Rory had missed any of his forms. Ross was alone, no one around which was just as well because he was hurt so badly he ended up regenerating.

Ross now appeared to be in his forties with short swept back blond hair, and light brown eyes. The perception filter can only do so much, it will make all the locals think they are ageing but it won't let them think he still looks like he had before regenerating.

Rassilon had a plan though, one that will take Ross away on his own for a while, while they finish in Leadworth. After perfecting the compression field that will miniaturise anyone within it. Rassilon then built a robot/vehicle he named the Teselecta that could replicate the appearance of anyone or anything but it needed a crew of miniaturised people inside to run it. This machine was the key to their plan to save The Doctor and take his place while still having The Doctor in the right place at the right time so that it would appear that he had been shot. They're still working on how to deal with the Silence but they now have the beginnings of a brilliant plan.

They gave the Teselecta over to the humans in the distant future on two conditions; first Ross must be captain of The Teselecta, and second they get to use it for their own purposes whenever they want. It included scanners to tell them when an event is a fixed point so they don't screw up time, which was the other reason they had Ross at hand; being a Time Lord he could see what was fixed and in flux if the scanners ever failed.

Rose disapproved of the whole thing, taking people out of their time stream, killing and replacing them. Trust Rassilon to build in killer robots that will kill quite horribly. She did concede the fact they needed it to seem like an entirely human operation for it to work and not make The Silence suspicious.

* * *

Mels was sitting in an Internet café in Italy. Backpacking was fun but having to worry about money and how to manage it was another story. She was starting to appreciate all the little stuff Rose had done for her, and she missed Rassilon and his crazy experiments which he had often gotten her involved in and somehow she always came away knowing more than when she started. Ross had taught her languages, alien and human alike, and she had been glad for all he has taught her throughout this trip. Brax wasn't around much after getting his own TARDIS; he was off scouting, but when he was there she liked his steady presence, he had taught her as best he could about thinking things through before doing them. Not that she did that much or she probably would never have stolen that bus.

She looked over at another person's computer and saw that he was looking at a crop circle that says 'Doctor'. Excusing herself she asked if she can see that and seeing it happened in Leadworth she knew she had to be there. Mels used the vortex manipulator she had stolen from Brax, who never noticed since he didn't use it anymore and ended up at the right date but about an hour away from Leadworth by car. So Mels, knowing she hadn't got much time, stole a sports car and drove to Leadworth to meet the Doctor.

* * *

It started out as a normal day for Rossadelaser; babysitting the humans in the Teselecta and chasing suspected criminals through history. They were going after Hitler this time, and with all the human history he studied in his spare time at Leadworth this is one person he doesn't mind dying a horrible death; or to _'give them hell'_ as the humans put it. Of course things went wrong, first they were at the wrong place in Hitler's time stream, then The Doctor's TARDIS crashed through the large window in Hitler's office. Then The Doctor, Amy, Rory and Mels poured out of the TARDIS and during an intense fight Mels was fatally wounded and regenerated into the woman they first met when they arrived in this universe.

It went from bad to worse when The Teselecta's scanners picked up Mels as Melody Pond the woman who killed the Doctor and now the crew was set on getting her. Ross couldn't think of a way of distracting them or stopping the crew, he may be the captain but there were still rules and protocols to follow.

"But we can't," he argued with his crew, "she's supposed to be at Lake Silencio 22nd April, 2011, that's not happened to her yet," Ross was glad to think of a reasonable excuse to not harm his little girl.

"But Sir the Doctor is dying now, regulations clearly state we punish after the fact and the fact is happening now."

"His death is a fixed point it can't be happening now!"

"Scanners clearly show that the Doctor will die in twenty-two minutes."

"Dam it!" Ross pulled his hair and sat down in his chair. There was nothing he could do without breaking character, and his training at the CIA had relentlessly drilled into him to never break character. It was instinctual at this point; he's been a CIA agent for nearly eight hundred years and a field agent for seven hundred and sixteen of those years.

There was a war of emotions going through his head as he watched. He and his wife Naomi never had children, they'd married for love and not political connections like most Time Lords did. Both of their families were very disappointed, there was no political advantage to the marriage and they turned down all other offers that could have some advantage to them. As a consequence both families always refused any and all requests to use the family looms to make children.

Young Melody was the closest thing he's ever had to a child of his own and he loved her. He remembered taking her on trips just the two of them using his vortex manipulator before the TARDISes were finished. They went to alien market places mostly to pick up parts they needed and he'd have her brush up on her language skills by talking to others in their native language as much as possible. He was a great believer in immersion learning when it came to languages.

When Amy and Rory appeared up in the bridge he was even more conflicted. Ross remembered the years in Leadworth. Arguing with Rassilon on how to put up a swing set a few months after they first arrived, then when they agreed finally on something found Amy, Rory and Mels had managed to get it together themselves. Driving the three to school on wet days because Rassilon had to get to school much earlier than them. Helping with homework, birthday parties, school plays, just playing around with the three kids being silly for the sake of being silly, even winning the betting pool on how long it would take Amy and Rory to get together, even splitting the winnings with Mels for giving the pair a good shove in the right direction.

He couldn't break character now, he couldn't let Amy and Rory know who he was yet and that also hurt, as he'd watched over them both growing up. He did however make sure the Teselecta could only hurt and not kill.

* * *

Mels was confused, who was this River they all went on about. She could barely tell anyone what her name was at the moment because the compulsion to kill The Doctor was so strong. She tried shooting him with no success, but she did poison him with a short peck on the lips. Ashamed she ran away and told her parents not to follow her.

She didn't want to think about what Rose would think of her now she had effectively killed her husband. So Mels went a little mad, and she went on a crime spree, from killing Nazi's to holding up a restaurant full of people making them take off their clothes.

She was just trying on clothes when what appeared to be her mother walked in. "Now dear I told you not to follow me." She adjusted what she was wearing, "I might take the age down just gradually, to freak people out."

"You killed the Doctor."

"Oh yes I know dear you're not going to keep on about it," Mels said trying to cover up how upset she was. "Regeneration gives a whole new colouring to work with."

"You killed the Doctor on the orders of The Silence, you accept this and know it to be true."

"Quite honestly, I don't remember, it's all a bit of a jumble."

Suddenly what she thought was Amy's mouth opened and a bright light started to emanate from it. The light hit her and the pain was excruciating. "Get off me!" Mels realised what this must be, it was what Rassilon had been working on, the Teselecta. Ross was in charge of it, and she momentarily felt betrayed, but shook that off, the Time Lords had always commented on how good her time senses are on an instinctual level, the only one that they ever met who was as good is Rose. This has the feel of something that was meant to occur – a fixed point.

Mels couldn't help but remember Ross and all the places he took her for immersion training as he called it. At first just alien market places, but later when the TARDISes finished growing to lots of other cultures alien and human. They would dress exactly as one of the local people and she'd learn more of the language and about the people and their customs that way and she loved it.

Suddenly she was broken out of her reverie when the pain stopped as well as the light as they were interrupted by a male voice saying, "Sorry, did you say she killed the Doctor? Doctor who?"

The Doctor was leaning up against the TARDIS. The next few minutes was taken up with The Doctor although he was dying by her hand trying to save her, and spouting out ridiculous rules and numbers to distract the clone of Amy.

Ignoring the Doctor's dying words the Teselecta still caught Mels and 'gave her hell'. Ross was honestly relieved when Amy used The Doctor's sonic screwdriver to mess with the anti-bodies and they had needed to power down and evacuate.

Responding to the Doctor's plea Mels used The TARDIS to get her parents out. The TARDIS helped guide her as she piloted the ancient sentient ship; even though she had learned to pilot Fred and George it was welcome because the controls were vastly different. Also she felt a comforting presence in her mind, one that somehow reminded her of Rose.

After saving her parents, the Doctor called her over, "when you find River tell her," his voice lowered to a whisper, "that she's amazing and I will always forgive her, no one can save me."

"I'm sure she knows," Mels replied choking back a sob. She went over to her parents and asked, "Who is River?"

It was her mother who answered by going to The Teselecta and asking, "are you still working? Family privileges show me River Song."

Mels was amazed when the Teselecta turned into her. She is this River Song they were all talking about. River looked at the dying Doctor and had an idea. She summoned her regeneration energy and asked, "Is he worth it?"

"Yes," both of her parents said in unison.

River Song poured her regeneration energy into the Doctor who woke up and asked what she was doing, all she could remember saying is, "Saving you," before everything went black.

* * *

River awoke the first time to find herself in a hospital bed and her parents and The Doctor were there. They told her she'd used her remaining regenerations all at once, and The Doctor told her the most important rule of all, "Rule one, the Doctor lies."

* * *

When she next awoke her foster family were there, and The Doctor and her parents had gone.

"She's awake," Ross told everyone in relief. "I'm so sorry Mels; I had a part to play and couldn't stop them in the Teselecta."

"You hold onto your CIA training too much, always playing the part you were given," Rose spat at him, putting down a blue book that looks like the TARDIS.

"I know," Ross replied, ashamed.

"It's okay, I'm okay. Ross it's alright I forgive you, and Rose you should forgive him too. I have a feeling it was one of those things that was meant to happen."

"Now he's downloaded the database from the Teselecta he knows where and when he's going to die. If I know my little brother he's going to keep running away from it," Brax said.

"They said I'm going to kill The Doctor, I already tried and I have no idea why!"

"And you gave up your remaining regenerations to save him. You're a good person little Phoenix," Rassilon tried to reassure her. "It's my fault really, I should have checked to see if they left anything nasty like compulsions to kill in your head. You've certainly had enough nightmares about your time with them."

"That's hardly your fault, and it's River Song now apparently."

"You're always going to be my little Phoenix no matter how old you get or how mature you look." He gave some sort of invisible signal and Brax watched the door making sure no one was around. "I've got a gift for you; I can look over and remove any damage The Silence did during your time with them."

"If you can undo anything those people did to me mentally I will be reassured, but how are you going to do it?"

"Like this," he replied as his hand started to glow and energy poured into her making her feel more alive than she had felt since waking up after saving the Doctor. At the same time she could feel Rassilon's mind gently looking through hers in every nook and cranny disposing of compulsions she didn't even know were there. When he finished Rassilon fell back into a chair beside the bed exhausted.

"I feel so alive, what did you do?"

"Gave you back your remaining regenerations from my own."

"Why? It could use up all of yours."

"Can't deplete the infinite, and because your worth it Phoenix. I'm just a little tired because sharing energy and not receiving any back is tiring."

"Your life is going to be hard now, it's fixed so not much we can do about it. You are going to be showing up and keeping the Doctor company, but in a non-linear pattern. That's why The Doctor left this dairy here for you, so you can keep track of where the two of you are and not let out any spoilers," Rose explained. "We've all left diaries for you to do the same with us." Rose held up a black dairy with a red rose in the middle of the front cover, "Look mine has a rose on it, not imaginative but no mistaking it. Rassilon's has a Phoenix on it, Ross a Gallifreyan seal, and Brax for some reason has a lot of flowers and rainbows on his."

"George's sense of humour for you, I asked for two identical diaries and that's what he gave me. At least you won't mistake it for anyone else's."

"What now?"

"You are going to enrol in the Luna University to study archeology," Rose stated.

"Archeology?"

"Yes that's the best way to find The Doctor, study history and see where his name pops up," she explained more fully this time.

"That thing still said I killed The Doctor."

"It's fixed, The Silence will make you do it, but don't worry; when the time comes know you won't be killing him, it will just look like you did. That's why we made the Teselecta."

River was relieved to hear it; she really didn't want to kill the man she had just met. He was amazing and she could see why Rose fell for him. She can only hope to find someone right for her; she suddenly remembered the boy John she had met when they were twelve and the electric tingle she had felt at his touch. She fingered the locket she still wore that he had given to her and sighed maybe she can look him up after university.


	15. Chapter 13

Rose sighed, it was now well after the twenty-seven planets and it should be safe but she didn't know why she was so nervous. It was only Jack, who had been one of her best friends, but that was before made him immortal. She didn't know how he'd react to her now; would he blame her for everything?

She looked over to Brax who came with her to meet the famous Captain Jack Harkness he'd heard so much about. Even back when she still called Brax, Tiny, which seemed so long ago, she had talked about Jack.

"What?" Brax asked seeing the expression on Rose's face.

"Just remembering when I used to call you Tiny," Rose half lied.

He laughed. "Yeah liked that spark of defiance about you, I could tell you were no pushover. The name doesn't fit anymore though. That's not what's really bothering you now, I've known you too long to be fooled by that."

"It's Jack, what if he hates me because I made him a fixed point; he can't die. The things he must have been through all because of me."

"I've lived a long time too, so have you for someone who was born human, and you know it can't be all bad."

"Still feel bad though."

"That's why I'm here - moral support."

"Liar! You just don't want to get roped into helping fix the Teselecta with Rassilon and Ross after Amy broke it."

"Like your not doing the same? Could do this anytime, you just don't want to face the killer crazy robots."

"That and I want no part of the killer robots, yes I get that the database we put in there really, really needs protection but he could have made the robots just knock out unauthorised people not kill them."

"Wouldn't work against the Toclafane though, might knock them out but people will forget they're there. They will keep waking up and walking around again."

"I hate it when you're right." Rose sighed, "Come on then, lets get a move on. I'm pretty sure Torchwood Three is in the same place in this universe as in Pete's World."

"What?"

"Nickname for the universe I first got stuck in," Rose explained. "I worked for the Cardiff branch of Torchwood for a while there. Needed to get out of London, too many memories even with the Zeppelins. Then they started the dimension cannon project and I transferred to London for it, and you pretty much know the rest from there."

They had taken Fred, leaving George with Rassilon and Ross just in case of an emergency. Rose left her TARDIS finding he had disguised himself as a big red door on the wall beside the tourist shop that hid the entrance to Torchwood Three.

Rose walked into the shop and found a young man with blond hair and blue eyes standing behind the counter. She wondered what happened to Ianto, wondering sadly if he was ever a part of Torchwood in this universe in the first place. "Hi I'm looking for Captain Jack Harkness."

"Who?" The young man replied in a bored voice looking at a magazine on the counter.

"Oh you can't miss my friend Jack, about this high," Rose held her hand up to about Jack's height, "American, always wear's this American military jacket from World War Two, will flirt with anything that moves."

"Never heard of him," he replied but he had held in a laugh when Rose said _'flirt with anything'_.

"Course you have, looked him up in your computers, it said he was here. Really you need to tell Mickey Smith he needs to change his password I mean the one he's using he used all the time when he was a kid."

"Who?"

"Mickey, black guy with a buzz cut, really stupid looking beard on his chin. Used to go out with him way way back."

"Never heard of him either."

"Guess I'll just let myself in then." Rose used her sonic screwdriver on the hidden door and her and Brax walked through with the man protesting behind them. They made it all the way into the hub and found Mickey handing money over to Jack. Rose rolled her eyes. "Betting on how long it would take me to get in here? Really?"

"Rosie!" Jack exclaimed as he picked her up and spun her about in a huge hug. "Been ages, I'd have thought The Doctor would have left you back in the other universe with the other Doctor, because he's a stupid git."

"Oh he did and he didn't, long story that wasn't me it was a human clone of me with my memories."

"Human clone? Where is The Doctor anyway, because that's not him," Jack replied pointing at Brax.

"How you do know?" Rose quipped.

"I know he's regenerated and I haven't seen him in his new regeneration, but something in my brain just tells me that's not him."

Brax laughed, "I like him, fifty-first century human, telepathic enough to tell my signature doesn't match. I'm guessing perception filters don't work on you much either. I'm Irving Braxiatel, everyone calls me Brax."

"Hello-"

"Jack."

"Oh come on you sound like the Doc now, I was only saying hello."

"You never just say hello. That's how you always ended up naked in jail cells."

"He still does," Mickey added with the look of someone really trying to wash their head out with bleach.

"That was one time Mickey..." then when Gwen looked like she was going to speak he added, "alright twice but that was completely Owen's fault."

"Some things never change," Rose commented smiling.

"Remember that one time it happened to the Doctor, completely dispelled the myth for me that Time Lords don't have—"

Brax really burst out laughing this time. "Why does every other species think we're asexual? I got asked that all the time when I was an ambassador. Just because we don't procreate that way doesn't mean we can't."

"We? The Doctor told me he was the last, he'd know if there were more," Martha spoke up for the first time.

"He was, I'm from this universe originally, but I got trapped in another universe. I've only been back here coming up on twenty-five years. Rose is more Time Lord than not now, and the other two that are here are from the universe I got trapped in. The Doctor can't know we're here yet though, we need to stay out of his life until we can save it!"

"More Time Lord than not? Save the Doctor? Rose what's going on?" It was Mickey who voiced the question they were all thinking.

Rose sighed and made them go somewhere they could all sit down and started from the beginning and told them everything.

* * *

Jack walked out with Rose, he insisted on coming too when she'd asked for his help to infiltrate Torchwood in the eighties so she could setup the cover for them in this universe and Torchwood or UNIT were the only places she knew where she could do that. She'd warned him about coming as he'd be crossing his own timeline but he insisted he knew a good time when he'd be nowhere near Cardiff when they could do it and it would be a lot easier with him than without.

"Ok, I'm pretty sure there wasn't a big red door in that wall when I walked past here this morning."

"I know, brilliant isn't he?" Rose asked patting the door.

"George is better," Brax argued playfully.

"What?"

"His TARDIS is named George, my boy here is Fred. Long story, I basically named them after the Weasley twins because they like playing pranks on people."

"People?" Brax asked amused.

"Ok mostly on Rassilon but at least half the time he practically asked for it. I mean how can you say Fred actually means _'Functionally Retarded in Every Dimension'_ and expect to not wake up and find your bed is now floating in the middle of the swimming pool?!"

Rose opened the door to her TARDIS and she and Brax walked in but the door slammed shut in Jack's face by itself and wouldn't open for him. She rolled her eyes and opened the door and let him in, "Fred that wasn't very nice."

 _'What he just doesn't feel right.'_ Grumbled Fred.

"I don't care what he does or doesn't feel like. You stop doing an impression of an inanimate object talking in my head and apologise. Don't make me get the hammer."

"Fine I'll stop pretending to be inanimate but I'm not apologising because you feel guilty," Fred huffed appearing beside Jack making him jump. "See that's kind of how I feel."

"Come on it's not that bad once you get used to it," Brax told Fred.

"You were one of those kids that when taken to stare into the Untempered Schism had to be dragged away to stop them looking weren't you."

"The Doctor ran away," Jack said.

"You got that right, took them a month to find him again!" Brax noticed the look on Jack's face. "Oh sorry, you didn't mean from the schism."

"Left me on a space station full of dead people and Dalek dust."

"Jack I'm really sorry about that."

"Not your fault Rosie. Never apologise for not wanting me dead. It's hasn't been all bad, yeah sure there's been some bits that pretty much sucked, but on the whole it's not been all bad. Besides it really doesn't surprise me your TARDIS doesn't like me, I once ended up travelling to the end of the universe clinging to the outside of the Doctor's TARDIS."

"She what?!"

"Someone's in trouble," Fred grinned.

_'Blue!'_

_'What did you do this time?'_ George teased.

 _'What makes you think I did anything?'_ asked Sexy innocently.

_'She only calls you Blue when she's angry.'_

_'What's this I hear about you taking Jack to the end of the universe with him clinging onto the outside.'_

_'Well I couldn't just open the doors we are in the vortex.'_

_'Were in, and you couldn't have opened it before going in,'_ Rose asked.

_'Well it was all my thief's fault he'd started dematerialisation before Jack could get as far as the door. I only just managed to hold off long enough for him to catch hold.'_

_'And dragging them to the end of the universe?'_

_'It's where they needed to be. Need I remind you that when you are The Bad Wolf we're the same. I didn't want Jack dead either, we just managed it a bit more permanently than we meant to.'_

"She said that was all the Doctor's fault for dematerialising before she could open the door for you. She doesn't hate you she loves you... Probably because you're the only one who's ever travelled with him that took as much interest in taking care of her."

"What he even sweet talked the TARDIS?" Brax asked.

"Of course he did, I've even seen Jack sweet talk a lamp post."

"Hey I was talking to the fairylike creature, you just couldn't see it."

"Probably because I wasn't dumb enough to get in a drinking contest with a Time Lord, it takes a lot to get those guys drunk."

"The good old days when I could actually get drunk. Can never get more than just tipsy now. Got to remember to challenge The Doctor to a rematch."

"He's a lightweight, want a challenge ask our friend Ross, he's actually been trained to withstand mind altering stuff like alcohol."

Rose laughed and started entering the space-time coordinates, "I know he's loosened up a lot since we met but I can't imagine him ever willingly entering a drinking contest."

"Leave that bit to me," Brax grinned helping Rose pilot Fred as she took them into the vortex.

* * *

They arrived inside Torchwood 1986 and just like Jack said there was no one around. It was relatively easy to make all the fake documentation and use their computers to make the records official in all the government databases. Next they setup bank accounts and Jack gave them quite a lot of money, when Rose protested he told them not to worry he's amassed quite a fortune in all the years he's been on Earth using his foreknowledge of events to play the stock market, and if she really insisted she can pay him back someday. Not as if the money didn't need to come from somewhere.

When finished at Torchwood they moved to an estate agent near Leadworth and bought the house they were living in, jumped forward to get the keys, then again to get the deeds to the house. Arriving at the house expecting it to be empty they were surprised to find the furniture there and when they looked in the garage River was sitting smiling on one of the two cars they started with.

"Hello sweeties. Thought I'd help out, or at least will help out as soon as you give me the house keys."

"Mels, what are you doing here?" Rose asked smiling then stopped, "you better be non-linear and not cutting class."

"Relax, graduated top of my class and got a doctorate ages ago. I take it by your reaction I don't need the books, have you just dropped me off at the Luna University?"

"That's right," Brax replied and gave her a quick squeeze in welcome.

"Oh come here," Rose said and pulled River into a massive hug. "Our little girl has a doctorate. A long way from the little girl we rescued who was always getting in trouble growing up here."

When she let go River moved to Jack and there was a spark between them that was palpable in the air between the two. "Hello Captain," she purred.

"Hello there gorgeous, you seem to have me at a disadvantage since you know me and I don't seem to know you yet. But I'd love to get to know you better."

"Oh you certainly will," and her voice dripped with promise. "I'm Doctor River Song, also known as Mels or Melody."

"Rose mentioned you a lot, but she didn't tell me you were so beautiful."

"Actually we have met. Back in my last body when we were children, back on Fun World. We hung out the whole visit, John." River pulled the locket Jack had given her when they were kids and showed it to him.

Jack looked like he was lost in memory then smiled, "Mels. Oh God that was such a long time ago, but you never forget your first love."

"Oh God I knew you were familiar," Rose said breaking up the moment.

"Happier times for me. Do you still have that really cool bike?"

"Yes, despite crashing right into the Doctor it fixed up well."

"Rose if you give me all the documents I'll get the stuff to you in the past. I can get Jack home."

Looking at the two of them she took the hint. Deciding Mels is an adult and the two needed to talk she handed everything over to her. "I'll keep in touch Jack I promise."

They finished making their goodbyes and Rose and Brax left in Fred, leaving the pair alone.


	16. Chapter 14

The Doctor had only meant to make a social call to Craig, and was pleased he and Sophie were still together and the newest addition to their family was really cute. Then all this business with the Cybermen had to happen. Craig insisted on helping, but he was a little worried because the baby was dragged into it. He'd seen Amy and Rory shopping but had hidden from them; he just didn't have the courage to say anything, besides they'd only get mixed up in all this as well. He'd endangered their lives enough already.

He and Craig, with little Alfie, stayed in after the shop was closed, then split up to look around. They had caught the Cybermat but where was it coming from? The Doctor went into the basement and found George the security man unconscious and got knocked out himself by a Cyberman.

When the Doctor came to he thought he was dreaming, or delusional, whichever one worked, because Rose Tyler was looking down at him. Wouldn't be the first time he imagined seeing her, happened quite a lot since he rebooted the universe and somehow ended up briefly with Rose who now appeared to be a Time Lady. He wasn't entirely sure he hadn't dreamt it all; it all seemed so unbelievable!

She smiled that brilliant tongue in teeth smile and reached down, took his hand and said one word, just one word, the one that started it all for them, "Run."

He let her pull him up and they started running hand in hand just like they used to, their hands still fit together perfectly. "Rose..."

"It is okay George is safe, so is Craig and Stormy."

They went up a flight of stairs and out an emergency exit just in time because there was a large explosion as soon as they cleared the blast area and the shop was in flames. They looked at each other and started laughing for no real reason other than the joy of finding each other. "Rose Tyler, did you just blow up my job?"

"Yes, well seemed appropriate, pay back and all that. Besides had to do something with the Cybership and the few Cybermen that were still trapped inside it all buried deep beneath the shop. Crashed there years ago, something must have woken them up."

"Of course, underground not in space!" he exclaimed smacking his forehead. "I knew there was something wrong with it all. The cybermat. The random power fluctuations. The cybermat being so low on power. They must have been tapping into the underground power cables." He looked at Rose and felt the most genuinely happy smile spread across his face that he's felt in a long time. He could tell through their bond that she was just as happy and pleased to see him.

Before The Doctor quite knew what had come over him he'd pushed her against the nearest wall and was snogging her within an inch of his life. He could feel his reaction to her that was pressing into her stomach and groaned.

"Doctor," she said trying to interrupt but he really didn't care at this moment in time that they were in public, no one would see them there anyway. The Doctor started trailing kisses down her neck, there was something off but he couldn't put a finger on it right now his brain was too fogged by a mating instinct. "Doctor, please not now, later."

"Rose I'm about to die I can feel time catching me, I feel old, and tired, and sexually frustrated because I've not been able to have so much as a good w-"

She cut him off by kissing him mid rant. When they broke apart she held him back at arms length and in way of explanation she said, "Look into my eyes."

"Oh." He realised what he had been doing and blushed. "Oh..." Looking out from her right eye was a miniature Rose Tyler waving at him. "What are you doing in there?"

"Come on in, it's time to tell you everything."

Before he knew it he was inside the Teselecta and Rose was hugging him. He knew what was missing now, he could smell her scent, and feel her hearts beating in rhythm with his own against his chest. In her arms he felt more relaxed and alive than ever; it was like coming home.

* * *

Instead of just telling him everything because it would take too long Rose let the Doctor into her mind and showed him everything from the moment she looked into the Untempered Schism until now. Well everything important, she was now 950 years old, older than he was when they had first met and that is a lot of memories to go through. He wasn't happy about them not telling him they were there from the start but conceded the point about not getting fixed into events. Didn't mean he had to be happy about it though. He was surprised about Rassilon and hardly dared hope his father could at least be saved somewhere, and was looking forward to seeing his brother again.

The Doctor and Rose finally entered the bridge of the Teselecta with the boys (mostly led by Jack) wolf whistling and cheering at the Doctor who blushed again.

"Never mind them, they forgot to grow up past puberty," Rose said to the room at large.

"You've really not been able to mas-"

"Jack," the Doctor interrupted with a warning tone.

"That's got to be rough, just saying," Jack added.

Brax hit Jack upside the head, "That's my baby brother you're talking about, and I really, really didn't need that mental image."

"Brax? It really is you..." The Doctor asked. He had seen it in Rose's mind but seeing his brother alive with his own eyes eased something inside him. The two brothers have had their differences over the years, but he had always been able to rely on his older brother when it really mattered. The Doctor had often joked that Brax was his occasional co-conspirator, but during the war they leaned heavily on each other and somehow became closer as brothers along the way. Guess there is nothing like a truly horrific war to make you realise what really matters in life, and from what he had seen of Rose's memories his brother truly had changed for the better.

"Yeah, it's really me. I'm sorry I got trapped in the other universe and left you on your own," Brax replied and pulled the other man into a hug.

"You were working for the Celestial Intervention Agency there. Now that I find ironic," the Doctor said changing the subject so he didn't say something he'd regret later as he still felt a little raw about it all. He did owe him for looking after Rose as well. "You've given them almost as big a headache as I have over the years."

"Only because I'm better at covering my tracks, they could never prove anything." Brax led the Doctor to Ross and Rassilon, "I'd like you to meet my CIA partner and good friend Rossadelaser, or Ross as we all call him even though he hates it."

"How'd you like being called 'fish' all the time?" Ross grumbled.

"Well you're the one still using the public name your parents gave you," Brax shot back.

"So are you, Irving Braxiatel," The Doctor added. "I don't think shortening it to Brax counts."

"I like my name. Much better than a name that's not really a name at all, but just a title," Brax argued back with his brother like they were children again.

"I like his name, he pulls it off well," Rose interrupted the two. "Why do I feel like I'm babysitting a bunch of kids sometimes?"

"Because growing up is overrated," the Doctor replied reaching over and taking hold of Rose's hand.

"And you know Rassilon, well not this version, but you know what I mean," Brax faltered with the introductions. "And I know what he did during the war must be stuck in your mind but I promise you he's different, I've been watching him like a hawk. He's still a little crazy but a good crazy not bad, this whole plan of making a robot who can look like anyone but have that person safe and in the same place at the same time, was his idea."

"And I suppose so were the killer robots, and the death ray."

"Yeah still not worked the 'impulse to kill people' out of him, but he's very selective on who now," Rose replied.

"I respect your view on the sanctity of life and always trying to preserve it Rose. I really do, but sometimes it's really better to get some people out of the way," Rassilon told Rose. It was an old argument they've been having for years. "The killer robots are for the Toclafane, since Rose and myself are the only ones who can see them."

"Toclafane?" The Doctor asked still a little unclear on the man's sanity.

"Don't give me that look pup, Toclafane are quite real, you know them as The Silence. I sealed them off into another dimension when I was your age, so a very long time ago, because their main goal in life is to wipe out Time Lords. This universe's version of me must really be off his rocker because he let them out. Has to be a desperate last ditch effort to kill you in order to release the time lock."

"You were planning on ending time and helping all Time Lords ascend to another plane of existence outside of time as pure consciousness," the Doctor told Rassilon succinctly.

Rassilon gave him a bewildered look, "Really, really, light years beyond crazy then. I don't think I could even do that. The ascension part that is; the end time bit any old idiot with a vortex manipulator can do. Rose could probably do that if she chose to do so but she's way too sensible and into the sanctity of life to decide we all should float around as beings of pure consciousness. Better get your TARDIS connected to the new Eye of Harmony I made so they can't escape."

The Doctor decided to ignore the comment about Rose for now, and file it away for something to find out more about later. He sat down on a nearby chair and gave the man who is an alternate version of his father a good look over, and could see he was doing the same. They actually have some resemblance to each other in their current regenerations; they have the same jaw line and his hair although a different colour is floppy like his own. It's not completely unexpected since regeneration is caused by their super healing abilities getting taxed, going haywire and scrambling up existing genetics to make a new person.

"It really would be a last resort," Rassilon told him quietly so you would need to be in the immediate vicinity to hear him. "I'm a different man now than I was, thanks in large part to Rose helping me; but I still know that no matter how crazy I may be in this universe you are still my son."

The Doctor snorted quietly in derision, "you created me just to be another tool of yours, my real name proves as much." The Doctor spoke just as quietly back.

Rassilon shook his head and sighed, "I'm in love with your mother, have been since we met. That is why you exist; I was just too screwed up to admit it. Your name doesn't mean what you think. I've really done a number on you haven't I? Got you convinced it's like saying Bloody Mary in front of the mirror three times or something. Just know this, every time I look at you I can still see the little boy who sat in the garden with me and watched meteor showers and loved hearing stories. I will never let anything happen to you if I can prevent it, in this universe or my own, even if I have to go up against myself to do it."

With those quiet words Rassilon left his son there to ponder what he had said.

* * *

George the security man got retconed and left stumbling about for the emergency services to find. Craig got to keep his memories and he gave the Doctor a hat, and four TARDIS blue envelopes. Brax, working as the Doctor's co-conspirator once again, used his TARDIS George to deliver them.

The Teselecta has a telepathic matrix that only a Time Lord can access, so The Doctor could move about, talk, and do anything like it was his own body. So fooling everyone was pretty easy to do, and he was kind of smug he still had the cowboy hat when River shot it, that is until Rose took it off of him and Jack shot it instead. When it was time for a younger River to shoot him she did so; not trying to stop it from happening since she had been forewarned about it not being real.

As soon as Amy, Rory, and an older River left with Canton Everett Delaware the Third; Rose looked over to Jack who was next to the Doctor and said, "Hold him, and whatever you do don't let go."

"What?!" The Doctor asked as Jack grabbed hold of him.

_'Ready to go hunting old girl?'_

_'Of course,'_ Sexy replied.

Rose reached into her centre and found the beautiful music that had fewer voices in this universe but was in no way diminished.

When Rose started to glow golden The Doctor's eyes widened in fear for her, "Rose, no! How are you doing that?!" He tried lunging toward her to try and take it out of her again but Jack was holding on tight, and Brax and Ross had joined Jack in securing him.

"It's okay my Doctor, like I said before I am The Bad Wolf, it is always a part of me hidden under the surface. I only needed to look into myself once to activate it. I take these Toclafane and their false religion and I cast them back into their dimension, forever trapped where they can do you no harm."

The Bad Wolf took all The Silence who came to watch and cast them back to where they came from. Next she searched for them out throughout the universe and did the same to any who were missing at the relative points in their timelines, and when finished sealed the dimension off behind them.

Rose let go of the power and collapsed gasping for breath. The Doctor ran over to her as soon as everyone let go, knelt down and gathered Rose up in his arms. "Oh Rose, what did you do? I thought I got it all out of you."

"I'm sorry I kept it from you my Thief," she said gently stroking his cheek. "But this is who I am, I've always been Bad Wolf, I created the events causing my own birth, the birth of an unlikely human who can carry a part of my soul. I looked into the TARDIS because I always was going to do so. I am Rose Tyler, I've still done everything that makes me, me, but I am also part of the TARDIS, your TARDIS. When we merge our souls back together it creates what you just saw. It's not something I do because I don't want that sort of power, I just want to be Rose. But it comes at a price when I am forced to do so; it damages the body. I'm damaged."

"No Rose! Don't die on me! We've only just got back together."

Rose smiled, "Not going to die, just regenerate. It's okay I can control it; it's not the same for me. I always stay essentially the same."

His eyes widened as he saw her start to ripple gold and let go scrambling back out of the way. Rose stood up and burst into golden light, but it was different light this time, it was the fire of regeneration. When she finished he was amazed to see she really did still look like Rose, just a few inches taller, her hair was longer and honey blond, and her eyes were a few degrees more golden. The Doctor rushed over to her and held her steady making sure he was the first person she saw with her new eyes so she'd be more attached to him. "Hi."

"Hi," she replied giving a stupid grin before fainting into his arms.


	17. Chapter 15

The Doctor had carried Rose straight into his TARDIS which he had parked inside the Teselecta, set her down on the floor temporarily as he quickly moved them to the lakeshore since it was now safe. He then took her to his room and removed her shoes and leather jacket and put her in his bed. He sat and just watched her for ages, only leaving to get her medication she needed to help the regeneration process. She also was in a healing coma and should be for another few hours.

The Doctor was having problems taking everything in at the moment, Rose was Rose yet also his TARDIS. He'd come across some strange things in his time but that was a hard concept for anyone to take in. Also the Doctor was full of a multitude of conflicting repressed emotions he'd locked in tight about the war and it was rapidly coming to the surface; threatening to overwhelm him. Somehow Rose had been keeping him calm but now she's unconscious he's having a difficult time reining all the excess emotions in.

He'd been interrupted by Brax; the other Time Lords had evacuated all humans to the ship that followed them and they had taken the Teselecta into Brax's TARDIS and locked it away. Now that its' purpose had been fulfilled they didn't want it in the wrong hands so they took it from the humans claiming it was damaged beyond repair from the fire.

Now they wanted to connect his TARDS to this new Eye of Harmony and all he wanted was to be by Rose's side but instead he was in one of his storage rooms looking for a part they needed. The Doctor couldn't find the thing and with growing frustration he lashed out and threw something at the wall and it smashed with a satisfying crash.

"Hope you won't need that, those things are hard to get."

The Doctor wheeled around to look at his brother standing in the doorway, "I don't care, all I want is to be with Rose and make sure she's okay and I'm stuck here looking for parts!"

"Rose will be fine, checked on her on the way here. I'm more worried about you, you're repressing everything again and it's not healthy."

"Of course I'm repressing because I've been through hell, and you left me to it! I was all alone, and I had to do it! I had to lock them in when the Daleks were descending. They were everywhere like deadly rain, destroying everything! And where were you? You were living on a Gallifrey where everything was calm and peaceful, no Daleks just the normal scheming politicians!"

"Hey I was stuck there, my TARDIS was dead and the High Council ruled it was too unsafe to get involved or send me back! I tried Theta I really did everything I could!"

"Well it wasn't enough!" The Doctor shouted, getting into Brax's face and shoving him.

"If I had a choice I'd never have left you! You're my little brother! I'd do anything to protect you!" He replied shoving back and the Doctor went flying into a shelving unit knocking it over.

The whole thing deteriorated from there. Next thing they were wrestling with each other as well as kicking and punching while screaming at each other. It actually felt good for the Doctor as he got to fully stretch his reflexes and use his time senses to tell where the next blow was coming from. Not that it helped much since his opponent was doing the same and had picked up a few more tricks since the last time they did this, but he had size and reach on his side.

Eventually when they were tired out they both lay side by side bruised, cut and sore on the floor trying to catch a breath. The room was a wreck, everything was smashed up and lying all over the place, while shelving units were toppled over, broken, or falling apart. The Doctor let out a laugh and Brax asked, "Feeling better?"

"Lots. You've learned a few sneaky moves in the CIA."

Brax gave a small laugh, "Will need to teach them to you. You did well though; those gangly limbs you got in that body makes it hard to reach you."

"Brax?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks for looking after Rose for me."

"Ha, trust me that girl can look after herself; but it was no problem, that's what brothers are for."

"That and taking out your frustration on and wrestling with."

"That too," Brax laughed and the Doctor joined him. All his earlier tumultuous storm of repressed emotions was replaced by a giddy calmness. It felt good to get it all off his chest like that.

"Brax?"

"Yeah?"

"Found the part," he answered holding up the part that he had come here for in the first place that he had just found lying beside his head.

Brax laughed again and managed to get himself up then helped his brother stand up, "love you little brother."

The Doctor just ginned and ducked as Brax tried to ruffle his hair like he was still four years old and limped out the door and headed to the console room laughing.

* * *

Rose awoke to find she was in The Doctor's room. He'd redecorated since the last time she was in here but it was still recognisable as his room. She was wondering what was up with the king sized bunk bed when she caught sight of the Doctor and gave a double take.

"What the hell happened to you?" She asked looking him over. The Doctor's clothes were torn and bloody, his lip was split and he had a black eye.

"Had a bit of a fight with my brother. You should see what he looks like." He could see the concern and said before she could ask, "he's fine, healed himself already, and we're both good now, got everything out in our scuffle."

"You call that a scuffle?" She asked with a raised brow.

"Well okay maybe it got a bit more involved than our normal playful wrestling matches, or frustrated ones, but guess we just had more to work out this time. We're brothers it's what we do, don't worry about it."

"You really should heal yourself."

"I'm okay. Don't need it," he said stubbornly and winced when he moved his leg. "Well maybe I might have cracked my fibula."

Rose shook her head, was just like him to do something like this believing he deserved the pain. She was going to say something but ended up belching out a golden puff of energy and her stomach gave a huge cramp. The joys of regenerating.

"No stay where you are. You're still regenerating."

Ignoring him Rose sat up and forced some of her excess regeneration energy into him looking for the damage. He had a huge crack that was almost a break in his right fibula, a small concussion, lots of bruises and minor cuts and abrasions. It was all healing at a rapid pace because he was a Time Lord anyway but she used her energy to make it heal him instantly.

"Rose you didn't have to do that."

"I've got lots of regeneration energy right now. I'm literally overflowing with it. So since you won't heal yourself I'd better do it before you break that leg of yours. Not to mention the concussion. I swear if it's the last thing I do I'll cure you of that self hatred of yours."

"Good luck with that," he snorted.

"Hey if I can make Rassilon resemble something close to sane, I can make you stop putting yourself down all the time."

"Rose..."

"Oh and don't think you are off the hook for not telling me about being bonded. I've had this gaping hole in me for the past nine hundred years and no idea what was wrong until Brax pointed it out to me."

The Doctor winced at the thought, he'd had enough grief over that hole for two hundred years, and he couldn't imagine nine hundred years like that. "I'm still not sure how it happened. I didn't seek out to make one with you, not that I regret having it. I'm just sorry I didn't act on it sooner. You have no idea how hard it was to restrain myself and stick to hugging."

Rose gave him a cheeky grin and said, "I could definitely feel how hard it was sometimes when you hugged me."

"Oi, cheeky. I'd tell you it was my sonic screwdriver but I don't think you'd believe me."

"What the one you keep in your jacket?" She asked innocently.

"Exactly. Why what are you talking about?" He replied with a perfect imitation of naïvety.

Rose giggled then said, "I'm going to have to watch you. You were brilliant at the innocent act before with those big brown eyes, but you mister have it down to an art."

"So what do you think of the new body? Never got around to asking you."

"Different," she replied trying to keep a straight face.

"Good different or bad different?" He asked playing along.

"Just different. Although, you've still got some great hair, I like a man with hair long enough to run my fingers through; those eyes are a really lovely shade of green, and you've got a nice bum."

"Well I like your hair that colour, you should keep it like that. Not that I mind it bleached blond but it just looks nicer natural," he said inching closer then capturing her lips with his own.

They were getting a lot more involved with the kissing and Rose got to run her fingers though the Doctor's silky smooth hair, when they were interrupted by a familiar American accent calling out, "Damn we should have waited a bit longer, then maybe they'd both be naked."

The Doctor just said, "Piss off Jack I'm busy!" And continued what he was doing through Rose's amusement.

"We were just making sure Rose was ok Sweetie," another familiar voice spoke up.

The Doctor stopped and rolled his eyes turning around to see the pair in his doorway. "She's fine, look see, now if you don't mind Rose and I have some catching up to do. You know the same sort of catching up the pair of you have no doubt been doing in Jack's room since we extracted you from that space suit."

Rose laughed then scolded, "Don't be rude, Doctor."

"That's me though remember? Still rude and not ginger."

"I'm fine Mels, promise. Not even running around in confusion this time."

"Course not, injected the stabilising emergency medicine I have in the infirmary. It's got everything in it you need for a healthy stable regeneration. Pity I always seem to forget its there when I'm the one regenerating but that's what happens when the synapses are healing."

"Yes and there always seems to be a planet to save as well," Rose soothed. "Look Jack, Melody it's good to see both of you but I'd really like to be alone with him right now."

"Alright, just remember you're still regenerating," River said with a knowing smirk and dragged Jack away with her.

The Doctor got up and pressed the button beside the door to shut it and then locked the door. He looked at Rose lying in his bed with a hungry look that made Rose's insides melt and said, "So Rose Tyler, my sexy girl, where were we?"

"I'm Rose, the TARDIS is Sexy," she joked.

"She's going to need to learn to share," he said back and sat on the bed next to her. He kissed Rose then had a thought that just had to be asked, "Hang on if you're part of my TARDIS, a splinter off of her soul, if I make love to you right here right now am I also fucking my TARDIS?"

Rose laughed, she couldn't help it, and at his affronted look because she was laughing at him, replied, "That's quite the philosophical question. I suppose that in a way you are, and also no you're not, because we became separate people once I splintered off of her. Not that she doesn't live things through me vicariously sometimes, but I have to let her in first."

"Vicariously? Like watching or actual fully experiencing?"

"Fully experiencing, like this one time she got very curious about what different foods tasted like and talked me into eating a bit of everything at the buffet in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas."

"Really?"

"Yes, but I'm not introducing her to sex."

 _'Oh you know you both want to,'_ Sexy added.

 _'No it's private, you will have to just keep wondering,'_ Rose shot back.

"Didn't say you should. Specially since I'm going to keep you on edge and make you beg to let you come. Might end up being too much for the old girl," he replied and started trailing kisses along her neck. He found a sensitive spot on the side of her neck that made her moan so he sucked on it hard.

Rose managed to unbutton his shirt and ran her hands over his bare chest, so he stopped his ministrations to shrug off his jacket, shirt and suspenders leaving him bare from the waist up. Rose in turn took off the top she was wearing along with her bra, sighing in some relief because they were way too tight.

Unable to resist the Doctor cupped a breast in each hand, his hands are big but they still didn't entirely fit into one hand. He fondled them gauging size, weight, and how to best fit his hands around them, and brushed his fingers on each nipple causing them to pebble and Rose to moan into his mouth; so he also knew they were sensitive.

The Doctor lay her back down on his bed and rubbed his straining erection against Rose's thigh moaning into her mouth himself this time. The kiss had been going on a record amount of time since they had both engaged their respiratory bypass, he was about to break it when he felt Rose cramping up and knew she was about to release more energy, so he waited and swallowed the golden puff of energy.

Breaking the kiss the Doctor felt the rush of energy flow through him, it made him feel more alive and set his nerves on fire heightening his sexual arousal. He had only heard of the rush sharing energy when sexually aroused caused before, but this was beyond words, the descriptions he had heard about it in university had nothing on the feeling rushing through his body at the moment. It felt like each individual nerve ending was having their own orgasm all on their own and he collapsed beside Rose temporarily while the feeling passed after a few seconds.

"Doctor are you alright?"

"Never better. That was the most intense thing I've ever felt." Before she could question him further he got back on top of her and kissed her with a deep and desperate kiss. He broke off and started trailing kisses down her neck and collarbone, eventually reaching one of her breasts. "I've discovered something new about myself, I like big tits."

"Lucky for you I seem to have those now."

The Doctor gave a groan of agreement as he took one into his mouth and began to suck on her nipple. He circled it with his tongue and nipped at it lightly, then more roughly gauging what Rose liked by her reactions. Discovering she liked light nipping then lapping, hard sucks then back to lapping and nipping again; he repeated the pattern over and over. When he'd worked Rose up enough he switched to the other breast and gave it the same attention.

He cupped her groin through the material of her trousers and rubbed along where the slit would be making Rose buck into him. "Please Doctor."

"Please what?"

"Please touch me."

"Where? Here?" He asked deliberately moving his hand to her shoulder and massaging.

"No, please Doctor."

"Hmm still not specific enough, it's been a while for me after all." He then started stroking her arm.

"God, Doctor please will you touch my clit, and use those nice long fingers in my pussy!"

He grinned triumphantly at getting Rose to say it and gave her a quick kiss before replying, "Your wish is my command." Then the Doctor pulled off her trousers and underwear with her assistance. He used one hand to part her folds and started to rub light circles on her clit with his thumb. The Doctor dipped a finger into her opening and started to explore. When Rose started moaning he added another finger then another. Seeing Rose was about to cum he removed his hand making her give a frustrated groan.

The Doctor deliberately and slowly licked his fingers then wanting to taste more of her he nestled his face between her legs. He kissed a trail up both of her thighs before parting her folds again and dipping his tongue in he lapped at her clit making her groan and call out his name. Keeping his mouth on her he put his fingers back into her pussy, fucking her with them. When she was about to cum again he stopped making her groan even more frustrated. "I told you, I'm going to make you beg."

"Please let me cum Doctor," Rose begged, she normally wouldn't have given in so easily but her nerves were extra sensitive from regeneration.

The Doctor this time started lapping the juices flowing from her pussy and rubbed his thumb on her clit at the same time. He stuck his tongue as far into her as possible and lapped at her enjoying the taste. As he felt her begin to contract around his tongue he summoned a spark of his regeneration energy to his thumb and released it directly into her clitoris causing Rose to have the most intense orgasm of her life as every nerve felt like they had their own individual fireworks display.

When she calmed down again The Doctor got up and removed the rest of his clothing in haste and moved back to the bed stroking his long, thick cock. Rose reached for him and asked, "Do you want me to repay the favour?"

The Doctor groaned and moved out of her reach. "Later, right now I want to cum for the second time inside you."

"Second time?"

"I came in my pants when I swallowed your regeneration energy it was that intense. But it's okay, two hearts mean non existent refractory period, especially in this young body." He positioned himself over her and his cock at her entrance. "I'm going to cum over and over and over inside of you."

The Doctor slipped inside of Rose and whispered his true name into her ear as he did so. Rose's eyes widened as she instantly realised what he had done and she nodded in acceptance as he watched her anxiously before moving again. The Doctor started out with a slow but steady pace enjoying the feel of Rose wrapped around him, her walls gripping his cock like he had fantasised about since he first saw her in that dress she wore the first time they went to Cardiff.

Thinking of all the times he'd fantasised about this he started to fuck her harder and faster and groaned out her name as he did so. He felt his orgasm coming so he rubbed her clit and sent another spark of regeneration energy into her. The Doctor came hard as Rose came with him milking his seed. He didn't stop there though, the Doctor reversed their positions so Rose was on top and he lifted her hips and pushed her back down again until Rose recovered enough and picked up the rhythm.

Rose rode him hard and fast, his cock hitting a spot inside her that stimulated her. The Doctor seemed fascinated with her bouncing breasts as he managed to bring up one hand to fondle one of them. Feeling her orgasm coming she concentrated and managed to send some of her regeneration energy into his dick making him cum so hard she could feel his seed shooting into her in cold spurts coating her womb as her own orgasm milked him greedily.

Still hard The Doctor flipped them over and started moving in her again. He knew this one would be his last thanks to the over stimulation of her regeneration energy. He set a slow languid pace, kissing her lovingly, whispering sweet nothing's into her ear, telling her how beautiful she is, how much he loves her and how he wished he'd done this sooner. Opening his mind to her's, he let her feel his love for her through their link and showed her his memories of them and all his secret little fantasies of her. She did the same in turn, and managed to open up her pleasure so the Doctor could feel what she felt and he did the same back. When they eventually came together Rose cried out his real name making him cum harder. They may not have had an official ceremony but she was his wife in every other way. The two were not long drifting off to sleep after, and it was the most contented sleep either of them had felt in centuries.

* * *

Rose awoke in the Doctor's arms and smiled seeing he was still in peaceful slumber. She snuggled up closer with her head pillowed on his naked chest and was trying to let the beat of his hearts and the fuzziness of his dreams, which she could see at the edge of her consciousness because of their bond, lull her back to sleep.

_'Rose.'_

Rose heard Sexy call but ignored it.

 _'Rose,'_ she called louder.

Rose just snuggled up closer still and took a deep whiff of his masculine scent, mixed with sweat and sex, and sighed contentedly.

_'ROSE!'_

The shout was that loud, even the Doctor jerked awake. "Wha', what's wrong. Rose the TARDIS, is annoyed at something, I'd better go check on what the others are doing to her," he said disentangling himself and headed towards the door.

Rose tried not to laugh, enjoying the view and said, "you can go check on your old girl if you want, but you'd better put some clothes on first. Not that I mind the view, but you know Jack and River would enjoy it as well a bit too much. 'Sides she's just annoyed that I was ignoring her."

_'They are about to connect me to the new power source, I need everyone out.'_

"Apparently they've finished she needs everyone out for her to recalibrate," Rose repeats grabbing his shirt and pulling it on.

"Between you and River it seems everyone can talk to my TARDIS but me."

"Your father can as well," Rose pointed out unhelpfully.

"He's not my father," the Doctor huffed while he pulled his trousers on.

Rose rolled her eyes, "Not technically, but he doesn't see it that way. Give him a chance."

"I'm not making any promises."

"You can at least communicate with the TARDIS better than other Time Lords. You get that from your father, the ability to feel a TARDIS emotions."

"There is other stuff I've got from him as well, things that make me special. I don't think I can ever forgive my father for it, even if he planned it or not. I've got difficulty remembering this is a different version of him as it is Rose. It's been killing me letting him and the others work on my TARDIS while I stay with you but I couldn't just leave you here."

"Sexy is fine. Maybe we can work on our connection, you could hear her through me."

The Doctor kissed Rose deeply, and said when they broke apart. "Maybe someday. I've got serious issues with trust and letting people in my head. You've got further in there than most, and I'll get better I want that deep connection with you, I crave it, but there's things in my head you probably don't want to see. It can be pretty horrible in there."

"I know, and I'll be patient. There is nothing in you that will stop me loving you, even your dark side, I've got one of those too."

"I doubt that. You're my Rose."

"Let's just say there's a reason they say, _'who's afraid of the big bad wolf_ ', and even a Rose has thorns."

"Rose, is that my shirt?" He asked to change the subject, having been out of his comfort zone for too long.

She took the hint and gave him that tongue in teeth smile she knew he loved. "Mine doesn't fit me anymore. Besides you got more in the wardrobe over there."

"Looks better on you anyway," he told her, those brilliant green eyes glinting with mischief.

"I promise I'll let you take it off of me later. Come on we better get a move on, Sexy's getting impatient." With that they scrambled to get more clothes on.


	18. Chapter 18

Rose managed to shut Jack up with a single death glare when the Doctor and her were the last to leave the TARDIS. It was quite obvious to anyone with eyes (well perhaps not a Sontaran) what the two of them had been doing.

"Is that his shirt?" River asked with a straight face. Rose had always found _'the look'_ only ever worked so far with Mels and this regeneration wasn't any different it seems.

"Mine don't fit anymore, my chest is bigger and my arms are longer. Besides he wasn't wearing it at the time."

"Really what was he wearing?" Jack asked in a suggestive tone.

"Really Jack? You claim to be over two thousand now. If you really don't know the answer to that by now I need to have a good long talk with Mels about what you two are doing when you're alone. I mean she is, by Time Lord standards, just a kid so she might not know."

"Of course I know Rose, we play chess," River informed them, trying not to laugh.

"For the sake of my sanity, I'd like to pretend that's all they're doing," Ross muttered but was loud enough for them all to hear it.

"And The Doctor and I were just dancing. Right Doctor?" Rose asked giving him a tongue-in-teeth smile.

"Absolutely," he agreed, giving her a heated stare.

"And about time too, you know when I first met them they were so absorbed in talking about dancing they didn't even notice when they were teleported."

"Yeah well I was trying to resonate concrete but got side tracked. Besides we wouldn't have needed to get rescued if you hadn't accidentally made an army of gas mask wearing zombies. Would have been a hell of a grandfather paradox for you if the nanogenes spread."

"Give him some slack he was just a kid then. We all do stuff when we are young and stupid," Brax said to his brother in Jack's defense. "I remember someone who was young and stupid once who stole a TARDIS with his granddaughter and went on a joyride. Oh then kidnapped his granddaughter's teachers when she went to school on Earth. Wouldn't be so bad except he's still on that joyride."

"Didn't cause any paradoxes though," the Doctor grumbled. When Brax was about to speak he interrupted, "well okay there was that mess when the Brigadier met himself, the fact Ace was ever born since she saved her grandmother; that time Rose saved her father and held herself as a baby was arguably my fault, and I just closed a big circular paradox. But the fact Rose is a walking paradox and Jack's a fixed point is all on my TARDIS not me."

"I liked Ace," Rassilon declared.

"You would, she's about as fond of blowing stuff up as you are," Rose said smiling as she remembered the time the three of them met.

"It's so weird that you know so much about my life, yet not my life," The Doctor said shaking his head.

"Oh I'm sure there's differences, no Daleks over there."

"Speaking of the other universe, we're supposed to report to the high council after completing our mission," Ross said uncomfortably.

"I think they're only expecting you to return because of your wife, but Romana would probably regenerate from the shock if the rest of us actually showed up," Rose replied.

"Romana..." The Doctor said her name and trailed off lost in a haunted memory. Rose grabbed his hand and squeezed in comfort, and Brax put a hand on his shoulder.

"She knew what she was getting into, her death wasn't your fault."

"She joined the resistance because of me."

"I wasn't there or know everything that happened; but I do know Romana. I'm guessing she wasn't that much different to the Romana I know. The Romana I know would never stand idly by and let something she believes to be wrong just happen. She's has become good at playing politics in that universe but she's still fighting for what she believes in," Rose told the Doctor with conviction.

The Doctor glared over at Rassilon for a moment then looked away, it was hard to remember he wasn't the man who had all his friends and allies killed of one by one; sometimes quite painful and horribly. His father did have two weaknesses though as the alternate had pointed out to him; Rassilon could never bring himself to kill him or his mother. His mother at the start could even talk reason to him in his more sane moments. She ultimately was by Rassilon's side when he forced them back into the war, even if she had given him the choice of shooting the Master or his father; he knew she was ultimately behind Wilf even having that gun.

"I think we should all go," Brax said suddenly. "Doctor included."

"I..I...I can't. Seeing it all it will hurt too much."

"A very wise woman once told me; some things are worth getting your heart broken for," Rose told him.

"Good old Sarah Jane," the Doctor said smiling briefly. "She's still saving the world and rescuing stranded aliens. Saw her and Jo Grant well Jones now, a while back."

"Jo Grant... Isn't she the one that baked those cookies that had you and your parole officer high for days when you were stuck on Earth?" Brax asked.

The Doctor laughed at the memory, "Yeah and The Brigadier didn't know what to do with me or my _'visitor'_ when we didn't come down from the high in the amount of time it takes a human. Cannabis - one of the few human drugs a Time Lord has trouble metabolising. Never doing that again, I like being clear headed. Not to mention I was sick for days after as well."

"Blew up a warehouse that was distributing it and other stuff once back in my early days on Gallifrey," Rose remembered.

"Really?" The Doctor asked slightly impressed.

"You should see how big the file of criminal offences I have on her is," Ross told him. "You'd be proud. Always up to something to help others and not caring one bit if it is legal. I learned to poke into what the other people were doing, the ones who made complaints about her, and arrest them."

Brax laughed. "Yeah got to the point were no one wanted to file a complaint against her or Rassilon because they didn't want us to find out what it was they were doing. If they did it gave us permission to poke into their affairs without a warrant."

"You've been a busy girl Rose," the Doctor stated, giving Rose an assessing look.

"What can I say, I just had to help people. Also I get bored just sitting in prison all day, needed to stretch my legs. Come on Doctor I want to show you my boy Fred. I believe you met George briefly before with Brax when I was unconscious."

"How'd you know that?" The Doctor asked following Rose through a door in a nearby large rock.

"He told me. TARDISes tend to gossip like old women."

The Doctor looked around the console room and said, "Very Victorian, with all the aged wood and stone walls. Mine looked a bit like this in my eighth incarnation, no stone though."

"I was going for a more Hogwarts look," Fred said as he appeared in front of him, and to his credit The Doctor didn't even flinch at his sudden appearance; Fred liked scaring new people like that.

"Yes I can see that now. Could use a few house banners though if you don't mind me saying."

"Good idea," he replied and suddenly a house banner hung above the four doors that lead to different parts of the TARDIS and a Hogwarts banner above the door that leads outside of the TARDIS.

"You managed to get an interactive visual interface, pretty impressive."

"No, actually I just didn't build in the restrictions the Time Lords put on the TARDISes in the first place. That's my TARDIS you're talking to, not an interface. Although any visiting Time Lords from the other universe, as far as they are concerned it's an interface. Don't want them freaking out about it. Fred knows not to talk about anything in our personal future timelines. Although your brother has often tried to trick them into telling him stuff, never works."

"Wouldn't surprise me, he used to keep meeting up with his future regenerations. Never got caught by the CIA but Romana knew what he was doing, just waiting for the right time to pounce. The time never happened though because of the war and he stopped doing it."

"More than one black sheep in your family then," Rose joked.

"Can you do the same thing to my TARDIS? All I've managed is to give her greater control over everything."

Rose looked sadly at him, "No I'm sorry. The only way would be to regrow the coral she's folded into and release her so she can take residence in the new one. We can't do that though because she needs to maintain the time lock. It's a sacrifice she made."

"She's not very good with tenses and keeping track of linear time anyway. The part of her that allows her to do so she split off into Rose," Fred admitted.

"So that's why she's always getting muddled!" Rose exclaimed. "So why is she always doing the same in the other universe then?"

"She did the same thing there. There's a Rose Tyler there after all. She also timed it to make sure you were safely in this universe out of the way when that Rose is forced to look into the TARDIS and become Bad Wolf."

"The Time Lords are not going to like that if they find out," Rose stated.

"If. More like when," The Doctor added.

"Don't worry she's got a plan, she always has. Oh and there are some visitors in the room of requirement."

"The what?" The Doctor asked excited.

"The room of requirement, he's taken the idea from the books. It will become anything we need it to be. In this case I'm guessing a prison."

"Prison?" The Doctor asked confused as he followed Rose down the corridor that had the Slytherin banner above the door.

"We need somewhere to put people that use our Eye of Harmony without permission. Mostly used by the other universe's Time Lords to make a tunnel into this universe. The CIA periodically try to sneak agents through. Not that we couldn't use the help, Lord knows you've been running around putting out fires ever since the end of the Time War; but we can't trust most of them."

"That's the one thing I don't miss about home, all the scheming. Everyone has their own political agenda, and the back stabbing."

"No wonder you ran away."

The Doctor followed Rose as she opened a door and they found themselves on a wooden path floating in a swamp. "You really let your garden grow wild."

"Yes well been busy, you know how it is; circular paradoxes to close, Time Lords to save, aliens to seal off, and all that."

They followed the path and came to a clearing where a giant cage was suspended in the air above a pool full of crocodiles. Inside the cage were three Time Lords and they flinched every time one of the crocs jumped up missing the bottom of the cage by inches.

Across the pond there was a holding area but it was large with comfy loungers, tables with umbrellas and a tiki style bar inside. On one of the loungers, laying back with a fruity drink with a cocktail umbrella drinking out of a straw; was a woman with long lustrous red hair, green eyes and ample breasts that was shown off by a low cut tight top. On the arm that was holding the drink there was a prominently displayed tattoo of a snake eating it's tail.

"Corsair, you're female again I see," Rose said in greeting.

"Yes well Wolf, women just have more fun."

"Brought some friends with you as well," She replied gesturing to the three in the cage.

"We were just following this criminal, then we lost power to our TARDIS and somehow ended up here!" One of the caged Time Lords shouted out.

"I didn't lose power but still ended up here, which shouldn't be possible."

"What can I say Rassilon is a genius. You all tripped the security protocols when you crossed over without authorisation."

"Well then how did we end up in here, when that renegade over there gets to live it up?" A different Time Lord asked this time and near jumped out of his skin when one of the crocodiles managed to scrape the bottom of the cage this time right under his feet. "And what's with the alligators?!"

"My TARDIS likes her, and doesn't like any of you much. Not sure what's with the swamp, and they are crocodiles not alligators. They're not real. At least I don't think so, can never tell with Fred, he once had a bear chase Rassilon around the corridors. Had to take it to Yellowstone and release it."

"Why is it always him that stuff happens to?" The Corsair asked in a rhetorical kind of way.

"Not sure, but I think it's karma," Rose answered anyway.

"Rose, you really should do something about your pets before they eat someone," the Doctor spoke for the first time since they arrived in the clearing. He'd been quietly assessing the situation until now.

"Don't look at me like that, I didn't tell Fred to place them over a crocodile pit. Actually it has one of Rassilon's ideas written all over it. Not that Fred listens to him much, normally the opposite. Fred can we lose the crocodiles and the giant Burmese python that's making it's way down the chain holding the cage up please."

Suddenly the swamp disappeared but the trespassing Time Lords were still locked up in two different cells in a dungeon like room. "I seek asylum under article twenty-eight subsection h point vii on the relations between alternate universes governed by differing versions of Time Lords," Corsair rambled out suddenly.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, "Really? And what did you do to cause you to be in fear for your life from the Time Lords there?"

"You're not really considering listening to this renegade?" The third captive CIA agent asked desperately.

"Why not? I am after all somewhat of a renegade myself."

"I started a revolution on a world where the CIA had a secret operation going trying to hold back their technological development. Thanks to my revolution they will get space flight capabilities at the time they were supposed to rather than a few hundred years later."

"Nice to know no matter the universe some things never change. Why do you think they will kill you?"

"It's one of Falax's operations. He'd do anything to keep things quiet."

"It's true, that man has few scruples. He tried to have me cut open to see how I worked when they caught me the first time. That's what Ross meant at the lake when he told you about me spontaneously regenerating people. Officially Falax covered it by saying he was taking tissue samples."

"Well I take it that's a yes from you then Rose. I'm convinced, but will need to talk to my brother to get his opinion as well."

"Brother?" The Corsair asked. "What did your sister regenerate into a man or something Doctor?"

"My sister is dead," he replied flatly.

Rose squeezed his hand in comfort then explained, "your mother was originally married to someone else there, that universe's Doctor doesn't have a brother just a sister since different children were born. The Corsair didn't mean anything by it. Actually you know his brother Corsair, he worked for the CIA when trapped in that universe. You remember Ross' partner Brax? I always called him Tiny because he was basically a giant walking muscle when we first met, he didn't tell me his name till much later so I kept calling him that."

"Rose and her nicknames for people," Brax said as he made himself known; neither Rose or the Doctor knew how long he'd been there. He patted his brother on the shoulder and said, "She disappeared along with Susan, don't give up hope. Maybe they got stuck somewhere like me."

"I doubt it," The Doctor replied in a low tone. "So what do you think? Should we grant her asylum?"

"Definitely, I wouldn't put it past Falax to have anyone killed. I say we let Corsair return to her TARDIS, gift wrap the Three Stooges here's TARDIS and send them back to their boss."

"Come on, I thought we were friends," one of them said to Brax.

"We were until you started working for the wrong side. You know what that man's like."

"It's not that simple." another one said, "Since you and Rossadelaser left, Falax managed to set up Samell. He's pretty much running the CIA completely now and everyone's too afraid to do anything."

"Damn it, guess we're really going to all have to go back after all Rose. We can't let Falax get away with it or bad things will happen."

"Fine, but we're going to need a plan," Rose replied.


	19. Chapter 17

The Doctor didn't really know what to think. Rose had grown up; she was no longer the nineteen-year-old shop girl. She had come into her own, and is far more confident, good at strategy, and can gather support to herself, and is able to naturally command such loyalty from her supporters. He couldn't help thinking that she didn't need him anymore. She was also the one in charge of this situation, and he wasn't used to being a follower. He was used to people around him looking to him for a solution to any problem, to defer to someone else was an entirely new scenario.

"Are you alright?" the woman, not girl because she was definitely a woman now, who was never far from his thoughts, asked.

"I'm always alright."

"No, you're brooding. You have the same brooding face you had when we first met."

"No I don't, my nose and ears are nowhere near as big."

"Is the thought of going to an alternate version of your home bothering you?" she asked.

"A bit," he admitted since they were alone in the console room of his TARDIS now she'd finished her calibrations. Not much had changed really, other than the lights are brighter, and she's added another door that opens into a blank room, which apparently isn't really a part of his ship but yet another dimension, and other TARDISes dock onto it causing a door to appear leading to the other ship. At the moment, Fred and George are docked there, and the Corsair's TARDIS was briefly, but they let her go with a strong warning about how they will be watching her, so don't mess things up too much.

"I'll not make you go if you really don't want to," Rose said, "never mind Brax, I'll talk to him."

"No, I can't let you go into danger alone."

Rose hugged him holding on tight. "Thanks. I know it may seem on the outside that I don't need your help anymore, but nothing's further from the truth. I've been able to put on a brave front all these years, but I've been falling apart inside without you the entire time."

He was beginning to think he was projecting his feelings of inadequacy, because she has just answered his question on if she still needs him without being prompted. Then again she always did know just the right thing to say, his Rose. "What are they going to say, or do to me though? I killed them all in my universe Rose."

"Well I've been meaning to give this to you actually, but there just wasn't any time." Rose reached into the multi-dimensional pockets of her new leather jacket; it looked exactly like her old one in TARDIS blue leather, and pulled out an official looking scroll. "Romana gave me this for you. It's a full pardon for your actions during the time war."

The Doctor was shocked. He just couldn't believe that Romana would do something like this for him. He unrolled it carefully and started to read. It was all there; they must have been watching him carefully, because there wasn't a single one of his crimes that was not listed. It was even in his name, his real name; it didn't just say Doctor on it. He sat down on the captain's chair in shock. "Did you read it?"

"No. I wouldn't without your permission; it's private. I promised you I'd be patient, you can tell me things in your own time. Doesn't mean I don't have a good idea what's in there as Brax has often told me stuff he needed to get off his chest, but never anything specific about you; all things he did."

"She addressed the pardon to me using my real name; she even had the entire High Council sign it."

"She knows you too well. Romana knows that if she addressed it to the Doctor you'd still find a way to blame yourself."

"Always was smarter than everyone else," the Doctor muttered.

"I'm guessing the one who pulled the trigger is the one who broke the promise?" Rose asked.

The Doctor's head snapped up and he looked at Rose. "How'd you know that?" His voice had an edge to it.

"You claim to be the eleventh Doctor, and it's obvious to anyone who takes the time to follow timelines you're on your twelfth life. I've spent a long time on Gallifrey, and I know what it means when someone takes a new name."

"I couldn't do all I did in good conscience in the name of the Doctor," he said defeated. Rose had guessed his big secret; somehow he wasn't surprised, his Rose always was clever.

Rose sat down beside him and pulled her arms around him. "I love you. Not just the Doctor, all of you."

"But Rose, I've done some truly horrible things. Unforgivable things."

"And I'm not going to judge you for it. You're a good person under it all."

"I don't deserve you."

"You've got me whether you think you deserve me or not. I'm pretty stubborn on the matter, and impossible to get rid of. After all, all I need to do is ask your TARDIS where you are."

He smiled despite himself, and kissed her.

After many careful calculations, and adjustment to their Dimension Cannons, they jumped dimension only to find they were inside a small, dark room filled with miscellaneous junk. "Where are we?" the Doctor asked, as he accidentally knocked over a container of stuff with a large crash. "I thought we were supposed to be on Gallifrey."

"According to this we are," Rose replied, holding up the holo-display on her Dimension Cannon.

Rassilon tripped over a box he didn't see in the dark, and fell into another pile of containers knocking them down, and then they knocked the next row down causing a domino effect. "Why is it always me?"

"Karma," Rose and Brax replied in unison.

Before long a light came on and a tall woman, with sandy coloured, wavy hair, and green eyes the same shade as both Brax and the Doctor's, walked down the steps leading up to a door. She cast a quizzical look at the intruders. "Dad? What are you and Rossadelaser doing in my basement, and who are your friends?"

Brax's face lit up with a huge grin, that his brother's tenth self would have been proud of, and he ran up to the woman and pulled her into a massive hug. "Vale! How's my girl?"

"I'm fine Dad," she said and hugged him back tolerantly, "still doesn't answer my question."

"A slight miscalculation is all. We were supposed to land outside, but jumping dimensions isn't always completely accurate."

"I made the calculations myself, I'm always accurate. Inside of the building we intended to land beside, on the planet we wanted to land on, in the right universe, isn't bad," Rassilon said in a sulk.

"That would be Rassilon," Brax introduced, "he gets grumpy when he miscalculates something."

"Oh great, so since he's here, I take it one of those two women is the Wolf," his daughter replied exasperated.

Rose lifted her hand gingerly. "That would be me, although it's just Rose to you, since you're family. Apparently I'm married to your Uncle."

"Uncle?"

"That would be me," the Doctor answered, "hello."

Brax moved away from his daughter and grabbed his brother dragging him up to her. "This is my little brother, the Doctor, not this universe's Doctor, obviously, but in my universe he's my half-brother."

"This universe's version of me, doesn't know how lucky he is," the Doctor joked.

"Oi!" Brax exclaimed and tried to punch his brother on the shoulder, but the Doctor dodged while laughing. Before long Brax had his brother in a headlock he couldn't get out of. "You were saying?" he asked, with the knuckles of his other hand pressed to the younger Time Lord's head positioned threateningly in the perfect spot for a noogie.

"I was saying you are the best brother I could ever hope for, and this universe's Doctor, doesn't know what he's missing. Please not the hair!" the Doctor exclaimed, but you could tell he was trying not to laugh.

Vale shook her head, "You two act like my boys, back when they were just Time Tots."

Brax let go of his brother looking abashed, but the Doctor just punched him on the shoulder and said, "Growing up is overrated. What's the point of having a brother if you can't play around with them sometimes? Besides the two of us have been through a lot together, we may act like children sometimes, but there is no one I can count on as much as my brother. Well except Rose, I'd say I can count on her just as much," he added to placate an exasperated Rose, making her smile.

"Yes well, Doctor, this is my daughter, Vale. Vale, this is your Uncle Doctor. Don't bother asking him for his proper name, you'd have more luck extracting teeth from a wild cat, than getting his name out of him."

"I'm not that bad; I told Rose my soul name, only yesterday."

"And how long have the two of you been married now exactly." The silence spoke volumes for him. "Thought as much."

"He didn't even tell me we were technically married, Brax did."

"Yes, well, I'd have told you eventually. I was always more afraid of your mother's reaction than anything. Two bodies later, and I can still feel that slap," the Doctor replied, rubbing his cheek.

Rose was a little sad at the mention of her mother, she still missed her, but she'd come to terms with the fact she'd never see her again a long time ago. "Poor Doctor," she soothed and kissed his cheek.

"And the other two are the co-captains of the innuendo squad, Captain Jack Harkness, and." The Doctor smirked. "Sweetie."

"Oh I hate you," River retorted in the same way she will years later in her timeline, but a long time ago in the Doctor's.

The Doctor smiled. "No you don't."

"My name's River Song," she introduced herself.

"Now the introductions are over, can we get out of the basement," Ross asked, while hardly daring to move in case he knocked something over.

"Fine, this way, but with both the Wolf and the Inventor here you can all get back in here before I'm caught harbouring fugitives, if anyone comes over," Vale replied and escorted them up into the house.

The Doctor was shown lots of holos of the family he never knew he had. Brax has two children, his daughter, Vale, as well as a son named Rothen, who were both womb born; something that was very rare between Time Lords, but obviously not impossible since he was womb born himself. Brax's late wife picked the names apparently. Vale has two sons, both woven, from one of the normal politically arranged marriages Time Lords have, and they like most such marriages, were no longer together after their obligations were over. It was unusual for them to have two children, most only have one, but it's not unheard of for there to be two children, one for each house. Just that normally when that happens they make one male and the other female, just like his sister and Brax. The Doctor's nephew Rothen also has one daughter. Any further out from that has him confused. It's been a lot to take in.

Part of the Doctor was jealous that his brother got a fresh start here, but mostly he felt sad for him because from what he can tell Brax had really loved his wife. Because she was near the end of her life cycle when the pair had met, she was now long dead. Now the Doctor had Rose back, and he has his fresh start, one he refuses to squander this time, and his brother is now the one left only with memories.

The Doctor decided to take a walk, while the others were busy hacking for information against this Falax. Normally he'd be in the middle of that, but he was too lost in memories to be bothered with it. Rose had it well in hand anyway. He loved Rose beyond reason, but she was different now and he was still trying to adjust. The main thing is though; Rose is still the loving person that cares about everyone, that's who he fell in love with.

He sat under a large silver-leaved tree, he wished it was autumn so there would be ripe flame fruits, ready for picking. He'd always liked climbing up trees to pick some when he was a child. Someone sat down beside him and he looked over to see that Rassilon had followed him. "None of it's your fault you know."

"I'm the one that pressed the button, I locked them away just as the Daleks invaded, raining fire down on the planet, destroying everything. And what the Time Lords were planning was much worse. I know logically I did the right thing, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty about it."

"What's strange is I feel guilty over something I didn't do. It wasn't me who made it necessary for you to do what you had to do, but I still feel guilt for it. I didn't feel much of anything before Rose healed me. I owe her a lot."

"There is something different about her; she has this talent for healing people emotionally. She even made a Dalek feel emotions other than hate once, and she was still human then."

"Rose is a very powerful empath, which has a lot to do with her healing ability. She doesn't even know she's healing people most of the time. She does know she can project emotions though, I've seen her do so before."

The Doctor looked up to the night sky, the twin moons and constellations he thought he'd never see again, and sighed. Suddenly he saw a meteorite shoot across the night sky, soon followed by another, and was brought back to his childhood; when he'd sat under a different tree, with another version of the man sitting beside him. Back then he hadn't cared that the man was supposed to be an insane criminal; he was just his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is as far as I've wrote because I've got stuck with action again. I'm better at drama. I know what I want to do next it's how to go about it. Narvin is going to be in charge of the CIA when finished and Ross is going to run away with his wife to the Doctor's universe when done. After that I've got a chapter half wrote about Brax and confronting his demons now he's back in his home universe and a major part of that is talking to and apologising to Bernice Summerfield.


End file.
